emmastudies:

Microsoft OneNote tutorial for study, class and lecture by emmastudies

Hello! I have had numerous people message me about how I structure my notes for OneNote so I thought I would put together a tutorial! Above is a small run down of the program and my little two cents on each feature. But now I’m going to go into a little more detail to help anyone who is looking for somewhere to type their notes. Through I’ll suggest my ideas on how to use OneNote for different reasons including study notes, class notes and lecture/tutorial notes.

Set up and use:

1. Start by downloading OneNote from the App Store or from their website if you’re using a PC. It is free!!! I would definitely recommend downloading the mobile or tablet app as well.
   
2. Sign in with an Outlook account and begin making your notebooks. For high school I would suggest a new notebook for each class. For university, I had one notebook for the entire semester. As I go into my second semester I’ll make a new one, and so one. For study notes, it is up to you. You could either make one notebook for all your study notes and use sections to divide per subject or make a new notebook for each subject again. Or simply and a new section in the existing notebook. Notebooks are linked to OneDrive meaning you can close the notebook and reopen it at any time. They’re automatically saved too, so you can edit on your phone and when you use your computer it is updated!
3. Start creating sections. These act as dividers so depending how you have structured your notebook, make them for either each topic of your subject (high school) or each of your classes/subjects (university). For my high school class/study notes I made a new section for each new topic and for university I have one per subject. As you can see in the photoset; my notebook was legal studies (subject) and each section was for a topic (crime, human rights, family, consumers, assessments and homework).
4. Create your pages for each time you have class. Add the title of what you’re doing and start typing your notes. For my lectures I usually just name them “lecture 1”, “lecture 2” because I’m lazy, however for study notes I would use each subheading of the topic in the syllabus. If you’re wanting to understand my headings and subheadings completely I suggest checking out the legal studies syllabus that I created the above notes too (you can see it here on page 26).
5. Time for decoration and colour coding. Usually as I’m typing I bold or underline and colour code but you can always go back and do it as a revision method. This also gives you a chance to add any extra information you find! You can see an explanation of my colour code in the final image of the photoset. I found colour coding and formatting super helpful when I was studying for my HSC final exams!
6. Printing time! When I had finished my study notes (or class notes) I would print them so I had a physical copy to highlight and annotate. Here is where it gets a little fiddly. To print on one A4 size piece of paper without cutting off half your text, you need to shrink the size of the text box. This is what you might see - with half the text cut off. I would say reduce it to about half the original size - you can usually see on print preview how close it is to the edge. After you have made the textbox thinner, it should look like this. Another tip is printing using one sheet for two or more pages. This helps to reduce the amount of paper you’re using. On the print settings look for “pages per sheet” and change it to the number of pages you want (obviously the more pages, the smaller the font). It should look something like this (I’m not 100% sure if every computer or printer has this option, but for reference I use an Epson printer).

That is pretty much it for how I use OneNote for my all my different types of notes! It is very simple once you’ve organised everything! I would 100% recommend this program. We were advised to use it in year 9 when we received laptops from the government and I’ve not stopped using it. Althought there are some different between the Mac and PC versions, the main elements are the same. However you can check out this post by @vanesastudies which is for the PC version. I hope this tutorial was helpful. If there is anything I’ve missed out, drop me an ask. Thank you for reading! x

strive-for-da-best:

Free Online Courses

This week I will be talking about the benefits of online courses, and listing out couple of sites that provide amazing free online courses from great universities.

So, the advantages of these online courses…

1. For the most obvious - it is free. I mean, what is better than freely access courses in amazing universities like Harvard, UCB and more?
   
2. For high school students - it’s a great way for you to find your interest and think about what you wanna pursue in the future. You may be stuck now thinking, hey, what should i do in uni/college?? Well, you may just as well have a taste of courses in different fields here and see if any of these appeal to you.
3. For college/uni students - it allows you to learn more, and widen your perspective (and help you to get a better gpa?). There may be courses that you are interested at but can’t really take it in college, or there may be courses that is relevant to your field and so you can explore more (which probably may boost your grades)
4. These courses are super well organised and flexible - they are all scheduled and the courseware is really nice and sufficient - if they are courses that have ended, you can just do it whenever you want to. If they are courses that are going on / about to start - you can either follow the schedule offered or again, just have your own schedule. Basically you can take the course whenever and wherever you want.

And here are the free online courses’ sites options:

• edX - they have an app on iphone to view the courseware/videos too
• Coursea 
• MIT OpenCourseWare
• FutureLearn
• Open2Study
• Academic Earth
• Alison
• Open Learning Initiative
• Tufts Open CourseWare
• UC Berkeley
• UMass Boston
• University of Michigan
• University of Notre Dame
• Utah State University
• Open Yale Course
• Canvas (submitted by cherokee-fangirl)

Some of these are certified which means you can actually earn a certificate after completing the course which you may put in your CV/resume.

On top of the above, you can also browse through iTunes U. There are also tons of great podcast that are all very informative.

p.s. message me if i’ve missed out any free learning online resources! i would love to know plus i can add those on the list! :)

Let’s strive for the best! x

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#3 || Link to my study tips series - i post once a week here!  (strive-for-da-best) 

intellectus:

Distractions get to all of us, and that’s ok!! Here are some great ways to prevent them and keep your focus when you’re trying to work :D

1. Don’t multitask! According to a study from Stanford, people who try and multitask get distracted more easily and have much shorter attention spans. You’ll get much more done if you work on just one thing at a time.
2. Take breaks! They’ll give you that moment of relaxation you need to get back to work. The Pomodoro Technique is a great way to make sure you take regular breaks when you’re working, and here’s an online timer and a list of apps you can try. 
3. Disconnect! The Internet (if you don’t need it for your work) can be one of the worst distractions there is. However, apps like Forest (iOS, Android) or Flipd (iOS, Android) can help keep you offline completely, and website blockers like SelfControl or Cold Turkey can limit your internet access if you absolutely have to go online to work. 
4. Get some sleep! If you’re well rested, you’ll have an easier time staying focused on whatever it is you need to get done. @educatier has a great masterpost here on improving your sleep, complete with printables!
5. Manage your time! Note when you’re most productive (are you an early bird or night owl?) and manage your schedule accordingly. Hold yourself accountable by noting the times when you want to complete specific tasks, and allocate them according to when you’ll get the most done.
6. Prepare! If you’re ready before you start working, with snacks, a jacket, and anything else you might need (here’s a list of items you may want), then you’ll eliminate excuses to take unnecessary breaks and will be able to spend more time focused on the task at hand. 

Good luck!! Remember that forcing yourself to focus isn’t the best method, and we all need a little respite sometimes. I hope this guide helped you a little, and you can check out all of my other masterposts here.

jehtudie:

Ok, so if there is one subject that in fairly decent at, this would have to be it. So I decided to create a masterpost about it. I hope this ends up being able to help someone and let me know what you think!

 1 - Do NOT Memorise

Maths is a unique subject. Sure there’s a lot of theory and numbers and a lot of lines and dots on the page, but when it comes to testing and exams, you only need to be able to understand principles of it and be able to put them into practice. In short, most questions that come are application type questions. Maths is not a subject you can memorise.

I repeat: maths is not a subject in which you can hope to swallow your textbook the night before and come out of the exam unscathed. Ok so sure, there are basic formulas you need to know such as the integration rules, but you need to understand them and be able to put them into practice.

The quadratic formula is a perfect example. Instead of trying to cram your head with coefficients and fractions and square roots, try to derive the formula yourself. Try to use completing the square and other nifty bits of algebra you learnt in early high school years and find it yourself. It’s what make the distinction between average students and the very best. Don’t just memorise a formula given to you by your teachers. Find out its uses, how it was found and perhaps other problems the formula in question has helped to solve. If you do this, you’ll be able to understand the formula and all of its applications, especially in complex worded problems which may cost others precious time to figure out.

2 - Exposure is Key

So exposure is key. What do I mean by that? Just practice. The best way to succeed in maths is to be exposed to the various ways examiners can throw a question out at you. There are lots of nasty stings examiners can get and usually they are unfortunately not found in the textbook. Instead, the easiest way to gain exposure in maths is to do past exam papers. Keep bugging your teacher for exam papers or you can contact companies directly for the company exam papers (These are pretty expensive though, so maybe try buying them online?

Here in Australia, if you go on gumtree, there’s a whole market out for past exam/sac/company papers and I’d imagine it’s the same everywhere). Don’t be lazy, and go on your phone half way through the paper. Do it like an actual exam, without distractions and with time limits in place.

3 - Past tests and exams

Whenever you get something back, don’t hide it in shame (though I have to admit I do this heaps). Go through all the questions by yourself and see if you can understand what went wrong. Write cute little comments next to your tests, annotating them with the type of mistake it is. Usually for maths the main types of errors are either problems with understanding or silly mistakes. The latter is probably the harder to improve upon, because it’s all due to concentration.

4 - Summaries

Something for maths which I personally find super helpful, is making little chapter summaries for flashcards. Try working out something for you that works. It’s different for anyone, but you shouldn’t just read off the textbook and rely on it to provide you with all of the information. It’s pretty hard to flick through the pages because a lot of it just exercises and repetition. Find a system that works for you, in which you can just look at a page and find everything you need easily.

5 - Tests

In tests, please please please please check everything over and over. Don’t be coy and look smart by handing it in early. Take the time to check through every single question. If you’re like me and make the most stupid mistakes (once I wrote 3/1 = 1 so like….) try using the back of the sheets or cover up the answer. Then, do the whole question again from scratch. Later check to make sure the answers match. Do this, and it’s like you’ve got kind of a double assurance with your tests.

Also, something to keep in mind, always check how many marks a question is worth. Then make sure you’ve got enough down to count for all of the marks. Showing your working out is also really important, because sometimes you’ll get method marks even if you don’t end up with the right answer.

This is also important if you’re running out of time. Multiple Choice Questions are the slowest marks you can get. One question is only worth one mark. Sometimes, in the short answer or extended response questions, multiple marks can be given to one question. So, basically the message is, if you are running out of time, try to questions that will give you the most marks in the least amount of time.

 I really hope this helped someone out there! I’m happy to help anyone else who feels they need help with their maths in terms of advice so feel free to message me!

studypetals:

not anyone else.