Tech advice for sixth form - hardware and software

[Chlora]

My daughter's off to sixth form college in Sept, doing essay subjects. Her handwriting is poor and she's meant to type, but at school she found this quite difficult. She also struggled with organisation and finding her notes.

For college I'd like to set her up better to type day to day. Can anyone recommend some good tech and strategies? eg

• will any cheap Chromebook do or should we spend more than the minimum?
• What software would be best for note taking? Word, OneNote?
• how to organise her materials in a way she can keep on top of and go back to.
• any tips on using voice recognition software?

I think she wants to work on her typing too, but maybe that just needs practice at this point.

Sorry for the long post but I'd really appreciate any tips. We'll talk to learning support once she's enrolled but previously they've just told her to pick up a school chromebook more often.

Battery life may be an important consideration if she's going to be using it all day at college.

Typing - lots of practice. Does she use discord or anything like that to keep in touch with friends? It might be a lot easier to practise if it's with friends!

Oh, I'll be following this as we're currently looking into tech for Sixth Form. DS keen on iPad Pro with pen and keyboard!

I think something with good battery life is really important- she may not be able to charge it in all classrooms etc. If you want good quality voice recognition software, then she may want something better than the standard chromebook, too.

I think one note is good for note taking if she can get her head around it, but it can be confusing to set up. Otherwise word or anything with word processing is fine.

If she'll be using a laptop for exams, it may be worth finding out what sort of laptops the school will supply (she won't be able to use her own) as different keyboards can really mess up touch typing.

My DD uses a laptop for school due to additional needs. She has a basic laptop with a good 8 hour battery. We set up a onenote file for each subject, then she adds sections for each topic and pages for each lesson if needed. She stores the onenote files on her school onedrive and shares the files with her teachers so they can access her work for marking etc.

Also helpful (depending on the subject) is a usb drawing pad so she can freehand draw into onenote for things like science.

Definitely use OneNote - it's a bit fiddly to set up but once you've organised sections for each subject and then sub-sections for each topic it's easy to use. Everything is saved on OneDrive so no risk of losing work as a previous poster has said. OneNote also has a voice note feature so she can speak into it to make notes rather than typing.
Lots of kids at my school use iPads with plug in keyboards however for exams she will have to use a proper laptop so it will be useful for her to practice typing on something similar if possible.

Sorry it's taken me so long to come back, I didn't get notifications and thought the thread had sunk without trace! Thank you all so much.

I really appreciate all the detail. Very good points re battery life and keyboard familiarity. I have struggled to get started with OneNote so it's really helpful to have it spelled out.