Why You Should Post all Your Notes on Google Classroom

I am a big believer that all notes should be posted to Google Classroom. I upload not only my Google Slide presentations but photos of anchor charts we make in class and keys to the graphic organizers we fill in while reading.  Providing digital copies of notes is a 21st-century teaching best practice. 

However, I know that a lot of teachers do not necessarily agree with me. They believe note-taking is an important skill (I agree) and by providing students notes online they will never learn this skill (I disagree).  If you want to hold students accountable for note-taking there are other ways than simply not posting your notes.  Taking grades on notes or giving open note quizzes are ways to encourage note-taking and provide accountability. I think it is also important for us to teach students how to take notes.  I give my students (even high schoolers) visual and verbal cues of what they should and should not write in their notes. 

So why I am so passionate about posting your notes online? Here are 4 reasons why I believe posting your notes to Google Classroom (or whatever digital platform you are using) is a best practice. 

1. Accommodations - One of the most common accommodations my SPED and 504 students have are copies of the notes. I would struggle to remember to make and hand out copies of notes to those students. Is it any wonder considering how many responsibilities we have as teachers? By making it a habit to post all my notes to Google Classroom, I know I am meeting my students' accommodations. Besides, most of my students prefer them being on Google Classroom because they have trouble keeping up with paper copies. (The only time this will not meet a student's note accommodations is if their IEP specifically states they get a paper copy of the notes.)
2. Absent Students - Before I started posting notes to Google Classroom, I would tell my students who missed class to copy the notes from a friend.  98% of the time my students would not take the initiative to get a copy of the notes.  Now that I provide them with the notes online, they have more of an opportunity to access the notes and there is a greater chance that they will at least read them. (I also post PDFs of assigned readings for the same reason.) 
3. Clarification - Have you ever looked at your own notes and thought to yourself, "What in the world does that mean/say?" Sometimes when taking notes we write messier than usual or we skip over something in our hurry to jot things down. Students do this too.  By providing the notes online, they have a way to go back and clarify their own notes. 
4. College Preparedness - When I was in college, almost all of my classes had an online section.  Even my only in-person classes would utilize BlackBoard for discussion boards, submitting assignments, and providing copies of the notes.  Every professor I had that used PowerPoints, would post them online for students to access. (I graduated college 12 years ago, so I can only imagine that colleges and universities are relying on technology even more now.) If we are supposed to be preparing students for college and their college professors are going to be posting their notes online, we should do the same. 

What other reasons do you have for why we should post notes online? How do you teaching note-taking in your classes? Leave your ideas down in the comments below.