One of my favorite memories of teaching in DC Public Schools was the day that my art supplies arrived, funded through a Donor’s Choose project. For our class, receiving the supplies wasn’t just exciting because it meant we now had a ‘Creation Station’ in our room; it was more exciting to know that someone out there cared enough about our classroom to give us this gift – a gift that wasn’t about studying, or testing, or homework – but instead given to us simply because someone wanted us to paint!  For the rest of the week, everyone walked a little taller, smiled a little brighter – and spent every spare moment finding excuses to sketch, draw and otherwise express ourselves with color.

For the past few weeks at Kno, we’ve experienced this excitement vicariously through classrooms all over the US whose projects were funded by the Kno for Good initiative that we launched in November.  From tablets, to art supplies, to music programs, to field trips, by purchasing textbooks on Kno you’ve brought immeasurable happiness and incredible learning opportunities to students and teachers.  And that’s Good.

Today – we’re proud to say that over 100,000 students and almost 1,200 teachers have been impacted by Kno for Good. On behalf of our team, thank you for your support of Kno for Good, and your on-going support of Donor’s Choose.

As every student knows, oftentimes the biggest challenge in class is simply keeping up with note-taking.  We’ve all had that moment of playing ‘beat the clock’ against the teacher, hoping you’ll get that last bit of the diagram or last few words of notes before they’ve been erased and the class has moved on.  Not to mention the crushing moment when you go back to your notes at home and realize you have no idea what they mean because you spent all your time copying and none of it listening.

Using the “Add a Note” feature in the Kno Journal, you’ll never have this problem again. Instead of furiously copying the teacher’s whiteboard diagrams and notes, this handy time-saving trick allows students to focus on learning rather than transcribing. Simply open your Kno Journal, select “Add a Note” on the left side, then select the camera icon.  Snap a picture of the whiteboard and presto! – all of your notes and diagrams are saved into your Kno Journal for future reference.

Try it today and let us know in the comments how it works for you!

When I was in high school, my version of studying involved sitting in my room with headphones on, book open on my lap, randomly writing notes about the text. By my rationalization, the more notes I wrote, the harder I was “studying”.  I did this the same way for every test, for every class — even though there was little correlation between how “hard I studied” and my grades.  This continued until 10^th grade, when an extremely dedicated English teacher made it a priority to teach all of her students The Art of Studying using color-coded note cards to indicate what I knew, where I needed more information, and essential points to remember for the test.

One of many benefits of digital content is that we no longer have to worry about marking up a textbook that will be used for only one year. Although the color-coded note cards are a thing of the past, teachers everywhere can help their students build critical study skills using the Kno highlighting feature.  Students can color code their highlights to differentiate content between things that are important, minor reference points, and areas where the student needs more information/clarification. Highlights are immediately saved in the students Kno Journal, for sorting, reference and refinement.

What’s your favorite study tip? Please share in the comments!

Why digital textbooks? For the answer to this question, you need look no further than Joe’s Non-Netbook, courtesy of the Chris Lehman Science Leadership Academy.  Created by students in 2009, this 2 minute demonstration of the failure of print textbooks to meet the needs of today’s connected students is still making the rounds today.  When you look at it from their perspective, it all seems so simple, doesn’t it?

Every day, more and more K-12 classrooms are launching Kno as a platform for digital collaboration and learning.  In support of this groundswell of growth, beginning today we’ll be regularly posting some of the ways K-12 teachers are using to engage students with digital curriculum.  In addition to simply sharing best practices, our goal is to inspire teachers and students to find new ways of engaging with textbooks, encourage debate and discussion about digital learning and highlight success stories from the Kno community.  For today, we’ll keep it simple — following is a quick cheat sheet for getting the most out of your digital textbooks on Kno.

1. Create and customize a course:  If you have multiple classes, you can easily organize your books.  Simply select “Add New Course” on the course manager (your Kno app homepage), enter the course name, then drag the appropriate books under the course headline.
2. Bookmark:  Tap the image of the bookmark on the top right corner of the page to add a reference placeholder to your text.
3. Highlighting:  Tap and hold over your text until a magnifying glass appears, then drag over the content to highlight.
4. Zoom:  When in portrait mode pinch to zoom in and out.
5. Double Tap Zoom!  My most favorite feature names! Double Tap any image within a textbook or PDF to zoom in.

Check out these quick tips and many more in the Gestures Cheat Sheet found in the “Kno 101” section of your course manager (e.g. the homepage of your app).

We’d love to hear from you — please share your experiences with digital content in the classroom in the comments!