Cool Tools for School

(project)

Experience the power of OneNote
to the fullest

Note: The information in this document is aimed at describing technically and conceptually the project idea (it is not a Marketing-oriented document). The images in this document are not prototypes, they are print screens of current templates. The project is in progress.

What is it

Cool Tools for School, is a big OneNote notebook with a lot of tools for students.

It contains a set of linked and well-organized pages and templates, tips and guides for class organization, research, and note-taking.
It also contains a lot of resources and tools such as stickers, insertable mini-templates, design sets, and posters with educational information for all levels.

All this information is organized in such a way that it can be used as a "system" and not as simple templates.

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What is it for?

With its templates, tools and resources, Cool Tools for School helps the student with the following:

Manage classes, assignments and exams,
Organize their time,
Plan study days,
Prepare for exams,
Set goals,
Measure progress,
Take notes in class and manage them,
And above all..., to generate the turn-in content in a more productive, professional, organized, fun way and with a touch of personal design, inspired by the sample data of each template and design tips.

How it is built

The power of OneNote (with its cloud storage infrastructure, to share your content, page history, backup, etc.) + well-organized templates + guides, documentation and contextual help + insertable mini-templates with standardized design... and a good idea, allows us to develop, what I call "Light Systems". Cool Tools for School is a "Light system" made with OneNote.

Cool Tools for School is developed with 100% of OneNote components (text, tables, links and images) and follows the design and color palette of Microsoft Teams.

My experience as a software engineer allowed me to see it, think about it and design it as a system and not as a simple digital planner.

Market analysis (of digital planners)

There is a very large market for digital planners, and one of the most searched and sold categories is Student Planners (like this).

The current student planners are mostly all the same and are based on a calendar digital planner with added student oriented templates. These are sold through portals like Etsy.com.
Most of those planners are .pdf linked kind and are designed by graphic designers to be used with programs such as Notability or Goodnotes (paid apps).

There are some planners for OneNote, but those planners are bad adaptations of these .pdfs (pdf as background image) and are not specifically designed for OneNote. There are also a few ones designed for OneNote but they are a set of basic templates.

Cool Tools for School is not a calendar adapted for students. Cool Tools for School is a true study planner and will be the most complete that exists in the market, specifically thought for students of all levels and designed specifically for OneNote.

Comparison table

Integration with
Microsoft Teams

Of course we know that Microsoft Teams exists to manage everything related to classes, assignments, exams and communication between students and teachers, and it also has a strong integration with OneNote.
But with Cool Tools for School, the students will be able to extend and customize all the information of Microsoft Teams as well as help them to be inspired and create cool content for their turn-ins, notes and research.

Cool Tools for School could be integrated as a separate notebook or as selectable sections when the teacher creates the class and configures the structure of the OneNote class notebook.

(concept)

Ease of use and help

Cool Tools for School is very easy to use since each page or template has its own on-screen help, contextual FAQ list, and usage and design tips.

In addition, each template come with sample data from a real case based on an IT class (not Lorem ipsum) which allows students to see its use and also helps as inspiration to make the most of its potential.

These on-screen help, contextual FAQs, tips and sample data will not only help the user, but will also turn him into a pro OneNote user!

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Vision

We already know that OneNote is the most useful tool for students. We want to make everyone know!

Most relevant content and features

Notebook main index

Access to all classes, semester planning and calendar, dashboard for sticky notes, stickers and access to the most used templates to take notes.

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Toolbar

All pages and templates have a toolbar for quick access to the index and all the functionality of the notebook.
Class overview

Allows you to manage all the class information, days and times, contact information of the teacher, access link to the school's web platform, important dates, access buttons to all class documents, useful contacts, etc.

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Assignment tracker

List with all pending, in progress and completed assignments, their data and access to the assignment planner.

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Assignment planner

From here you can manage all the information of the assignment, dates, status, tags, instructions, tasks, materials, resources, links to the tracker, to the assignment of the school's web platform, to the class notes, all the information of the turn-in documents, comments and feedback from the teacher, the rubric, and much more.

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School Tools

The most used posters by teachers and students with educational information for all levels.
More posters
- Numbers
- Math Symbols
- Addition
- Subtraction
- Division
- Multiplication
- Place value
- Fractions & Percentages
- Roman Numerals
- 2D Shapes
- 3D Shapes
- Pythagorean board
- Area, Volume & Perimeter
- Angles
- Periodic Table
- Mathematical formulas
- Shapes
Note taking templates

264 note templates in 9 colors (3 for dark mode) including 7 different Cornell system designs. All well organized in an index for easy access. Each template has a header with basic data of the note, pager, section for #tags and the toolbar for quick access to the notebook functionalities.

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Stickers

Lots of stickers! Transparent and cropped PNGs, specifically designed in shape, color and size to perfectly match the templates. All organized by color and style.

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Mini-templates

Many mini-templates to be able to extend and customize the main templates, notes and turn-in documents. Here are just a few examples.

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More templates

Insertable templates for class and assignments.
- Essay
- Pomodoro tracker
- Reading summary
- Reading log
- Brain dump
- Mind map
- Contacts
- Notes
- To Do
- Handouts
- Quizzes
- Grades
- Definitions
- Concepts / Terms
- Vocabulary
- Readings
- Materials
- Supplies
- Study session log
- Study time
- Meetings
- Result tracker
- Attendance log
- Reflection

Summary

Cool Tools for School is the biggest digital planner for students designed specifically for OneNote with lots of templates, insertable mini-templates, tips, tools and useful resources that will help them throughout the study process, such as taking notes, organization and management of assignments, study planning and exam preparation and to generate turn-in content. It can be used as an individual tool or as an extension of platforms such as Microsoft Teams for education, Blackboard, Schoology, Google Classroom, etc.

Cool tools for school! (project)