Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time converting our interactive notebooks into digital math notes. You could say that I eat, drink, and sleep digital interactive notebooks. This has been sooo fun! (nerd fun)
I’ve used interactive notebooks as an anchor to my teaching for years, but I was a skeptic about digital notes. However, as I’ve been converting my notes to digital, I see so many benefits to digital notes. So, let me share some features that make digital notes awesome!
Why interactive notebooks
First of all, revisiting these interactive notes has reminded me that interactive notebooks are so much better than the notes from my junior high days. One cool thing that we’ve done in our interactive notebooks is to include interactive activities. They make these notes into so much more than just foldables and graphic organizers.
Transforming these notes from paper to digital means reimagining each step of the note-taking process. You see, inside each unit of notes we take students through the whole learning progression. We include a set of “I Can…” statements with a spot for reflection, a building background activity, a few practice problems, and an anchor chart (we call it a cheat sheet). In addition to those activities there are 2-4 foldable notes or graphic organizers to capture key points about the concept. (To learn more about teaching with interactive notebooks check out this blog post.)
Not only do students have a solid introduction by walking through this notes progression, they’re also left with a reference that they themselves have created. It’s a great tool for students to learn to rely on as they move into the practice portion of a unit.
(If you want to go take a look at these notes units right now, check out our year-long 7th grade notes and 8th grade notes here).
Falling in love with digital math notes
As I’ve converted these these notes and activities over to digital, I’ve gotten very excited about the possibilities of digital math notes and activities. There are a lot of things you can do digitally that would be next to impossible to do, or at the very least would take students forever to finish on paper.
Digital notebooks allow students to label diagrams, write notes, annotate text, explain steps, and complete practice problems just as they can in their paper-based notes.
However, students don’t need to cut, glue, or tape anything. There’s no students cutting on the line that they were supposed to fold, or spending 10 minutes searching for their supplies.
Instead, with digital math notes students drag and drop features and text boxes to complete missing information. Plus, they write key terms in prepared text boxes. There’s so many ways students can interact with their digital notes.
As I’ve been converting our interactive notes to a digital format, I’ve added them to the existing printable notes. So, busy teachers can get BOTH the PAPER and DIGITAL versions, giving the flexibility to have the right tool for whatever teaching situation arises.
Transferring math notes to a digital version requires reimagining some traditional practices. One of my favorite discoveries was figuring out how to have students annotate text in their digital notebook using prepared highlighting strips and circles.
In these Scale Drawings notes students can annotate a word problem, fill in missing information, and practice math. And they can do all that without asking their neighbor to borrow a highlighter 🙂
Inside a Digital Notes Unit
I want to show you a behind the scenes look at our digital notes. Honestly, these interactive notebook units are packed with digital activites, even if you don’t use them as “notes”. Every unit has the following features:
“I Can …” Statements and Reflection–
This page is used to evaluate progress in the unit. Students drag the checkmarks as they master aspects of the unit and write a reflection at the end of the unit.
Just like in paper-based interactive notebooks, I Can Statements are a great way to start and end the lesson each day and gives students a way to reflect on what they’ve learned so far. Plus, they can see the next steps in their learning path. (Read more about using I Can Statements in notes here)
Building background activity –
Every unit has one or two background building activities that are related to vocabulary or skills students need to know for the topic at hand. For example, in this activity for square roots and cube roots students drag words and symbols into two categories.
Digital Notes –
Next, the notes part of the unit are usually graphic organizers or worked problems that walk students through a process or a series of steps. They involve students filling in the blanks or writing their own observations. Each unit has 2-4 pages of notes depending on the topic.
Notebook Practice Activities –
Each unit has at least one page for practicing. These consist of 4 to 6 problems and a text box for students to write their answers. They will need to do their work on a piece of paper.
Anchor Chart –
Finally, the anchor chart wraps up the notes unit. In the digital version this page isn’t interactive. It’s a static image that has information, tips, and tricks for students for the topic they are learning. It is something that you will talk to students about and serves as a reference when they are doing problems.
As you can see, these math digital notes units have a variety of digital activities that can be used in different ways. You can use some of the activities and not all of them if you don’t have time. There’s some amazing digital practice in these units, so you could also use them for intervention. They’re really a lot more than just notes.
Final Thoughts on Digital Math Notes
In conclusion, I hope you can see why I’m so pumped about these digital notes. Using digital notes allows for certain features that paper notes just, well, don’t. Whether it’s the color printing or the fact that no scissors are required, digital notes still let students interact with their notes and customize them, even in a digital environment.
If you’re looking for a notes solution for the whole year, and you need a digital option, you can grab our notes here:
- 7th Grade Math Year Long Notes Bundle
- 8th Grade Math Year Long Notes Bundle
- 7th and 8th Grade Math Year Long Notes Bundle
Plus, these notes include both digital and printable versions, giving you the flexibility to handle whatever this school year throws at you.
