Using Microsoft OneNote as a Portfolio Tool for a Higher Education Dance Curriculum

The way students can work with information has changed in recent years with digital, rather than paper, notes becoming more available. For dance this information will typically include videos, photos, sketches, annotated Word/pdf/PowerPoint documents, web clips/sites as well as written notes.

Microsoft OneNote is a powerful, cross-device app allowing exactly this kind note taking and, as such, offers fantastic opportunities for students to develop their ability to work with and make sense of diverse forms of electronic information. Its flexible nature allows students to work in a creative way that suits their own learning style.

Microsoft OneNote now has “class notebook” add-on which provides two additional key features: a central storage place for course material (laid out in notebook format) and a shared “common” space for students to share their work with each other. This can be incredibly useful for allowing both flipped and collaborative learning.

We have been trialling various features of OneNote within a portfolio learning environment at level 4 and 5 of a Dance course at the University of Worcester. An existing dance student was recruited to support this process. We had two aims: to develop students technical skills in handling and using information (as per JISC definition of digital literacy) and to create flexible learning and assessment environments. We used it to deploy content and study tasks, review student work as it developed and provide feedback. Students also shared elements of their portfolio with others via the collaboration space in order to facilitate co-learning and peer review.

The feedback from both the lecturers and the students was very positive. The lecturers found they could look across all students’ work as it developed, allowing restructuring of learning during the module. It was also fast and easy to provide feed-forward feedback on the script to allow students to fully achieve in this assessment.

The students liked using OneNote with comments on the ease of adding in photos and videos, and how easy it was to organise their work. 60% agreed with the statement “Was looking at others work in the collaboration space helpful to assess the quality of your work?” and 92% preferred using OneNote to writing an essay. 40% felt using OneNote had improved their digital skills.

We saw a 67% continuation in using OneNote for assignments even when it was not a requirement.

This session will cover the potential benefits, and our experiences, of using OneNote and provide useful tips for educationalists considering this kind of environment.