A OneNote Staff Notebook in Microsoft Teams is a digital notebook that helps teachers facilitate collaboration, save time and keep everything organised and in one place.
Staff Notebooks are very simple to set up and can help you increase efficiency by keeping all your essential information in one central place.
This guide looks deeper into Staff Notebooks and shows you how to set up a new Staff Notebook in Microsoft Teams.
How to set up a Staff Notebook in Microsoft Teams.
Head to the Teams channel you’d like to set up a notebook for and select the Staff Notebook tab at the top of your Teams window.
If the Staff Notebook isn’t already set up, you can select Set up OneNote Staff Notebook.
You can create a Blank Notebook or make one From existing notebook content.
Tip: Consider using one you’ve already created if you’re creating notebooks for multiple sites. This can serve as a template you can edit for each subject rather than wasting time starting from scratch for every notebook.
The main features of a Staff Notebook include the following:
Staff member notebooks.
Staff member notebooks are private and only shared between staff leaders and individual staff members. You can use this space to take notes on professional development, evaluations and lesson plans.
Content library.
The content library is a designated space where team leaders can share read-only documents with the rest of the team. It’s ideal for sharing subject resources, policies, procedures, school planning and more.
Collaboration space.
Keep your team connected with a collaboration space.
A collaboration space allows your team to work together in real-time. This is a great way to share ideas, work on lesson plans and create meeting agendas and minutes.
Leader-only section.
Designed to be accessed only by staff leaders and Team owners, the leaders-only section is excellent for drafting meeting agendas, planning materials and any other confidential information that team leaders should only see.
What we love about Staff Notebooks in Teams:
Everything is in one place.
Your Staff Notebook is automatically added as a tab to your Teams channel, so you can simply stay in the Teams app to get the resources you need for that particular department or subject.
Organise everything in sections.
Add colour-coded sections to your staff notebooks to organise the content and make everything easy to find. You can add as many sections as you’d like at any time.
For example, you could create a section for resources, one for different year groups, classroom feedback etc.
Create engaging content for your Staff Notebooks.
You can create engaging content within your Staff Notebooks thanks to the many familiar Microsoft Office features, including charts, graphs and tables.
Take time to reflect.
Reflect is a relatively new tool in Teams and is great for checking on the welfare of both staff and students. Within Staff Notebooks, you can add the Reflect tool so staff can check in with their progress and wellbeing.
We created a guide on Microsoft’s Reflect feature here.
Notify your staff of important announcements.
As items are added to a Staff Notebook, all Team members receive a notification. This is brilliant for saving time manually creating emails and messages to update your team, and it also reduces the number of emails your teachers and staff need to sort through.
Distribute your staff notebooks.
Share information with ease and confidence. You can distribute your notebooks to the whole Team or choose individual members in just a few taps.
Access your staff notebooks from anywhere.
Staff Notebooks in Teams can be accessed from your desktop or the Teams app on your smartphone, meaning all the information you need about a department or subject is at your fingertips.
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