Parents' Guide to

Notability

By Stacy Zeiger, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 10+

Creative tool lets kids jazz up notes with audio, photos.

App iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Mac Paid Productivity
Notability Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this app.

  • Notability App: Screenshot #1
  • Notability App: Screenshot #2
  • Notability App: Screenshot #3

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age 10+

Based on 2 parent reviews

ReviewThis
ReviewThis Adult
March 15, 2020
age 10+

Crashes & Deletes

This constantly crashes and deletes my recordings & notes! Unreliable
hewittwalker
hewittwalker Parent of 8 and 12-year-old
December 5, 2013
age 10+

Idea for Common Sense Media

OK - we don't have an iPad and admit to not having tried this app. But the concept of enabling kids to do their notes in a whole host of different ways is awesome, and I could see it being very well received. I wish Common Sense Media would partner with Apple or Google on a phone totally geared to kids, where the apps are reviewed by a respected organization like CSM, or parents at least have the ability to remotely control what does and does not belong on the phone so kids could use it more to their advantage and we could avoid all the parent-child battles over screen time/game time. I'm sorry but - based on our experience - middle schoolers just don't have the impulse control (and vision) to use their phone for communication, education, organization, time-management, etc... All that other good stuff is best added later.

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What’s It About?

NOTABILITY helps kids and teens take notes they'll want to review, revisit, and actively use. If there's a chart in the textbook they want to reference quickly, they can snap a picture and add it to their notes. If a concept is better explained by drawing a picture, they can do it right there. On a single page of notes, students can type, write, draw, highlight, record audio, cut, paste, and even insert content captured from websites. When they're finished, students can organize notes for easy access later. The audio-recording feature is especially flexible: If you play from the start of the recording, the notes you took darken and fill in as the recording continues, letting you see them appear as you wrote them. Similarly, you can tap on any point of the note (whether it's written or typed or a photo) and jump to that point in the audio recording.


Students also can use Notability to organize their notes, tagging them by color and organizing them by tags or categories. To access notes, users can sync between devices and share their notes across a variety of platforms (such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and Box), via email or iTunes or across devices through the Notability app itself.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (2):
Kids say (3):

With so many flexible and thoughtful features, Notability equips all students to take high-impact notes. Although note-taking may be a way for students to capture important information, not all students benefit from the note-taking process. Notability recognizes that different students have different learning needs and note-taking preferences. Students can choose to record as they talk or record their teachers' lectures and make minimal written notes ("test review starts here!") to help them jump to appropriate points in the audio recording when they revisit their notes later. Students also can record themselves sharing key information or record a conversation with a teacher when they're receiving feedback or reviewing for an assessment. Learners who respond better to images or drawings can add photographs and drawings to their notes, while learners can who thrive on charts and diagrams can create them with a stylus or finger.


Keep in mind that not all these options work for everyone, and it might be overwhelming if you try to use them all at once. It's up to students and their teachers to develop efficient strategies for using the app's many capabilities in the most efficient, meaningful way possible.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about staying organized. If you set up categories for your notes, which categories do you need? Help kids set up subjects and dividers to keep their notes organized.

  • Review notes with kids regularly, especially when they're preparing for a big test. Talk about how notes can help you prepare for an assessment and how and when to review them when there's a test coming up. 

  • Talk about the best ways for your child to take notes. What helps him or her learn best? Talk about ways to use pictures, drawings, typing, handwriting, or audio to most effectively capture what's going on in class and what they need to know once they get home. Consider setting up a conversation between your child and his or her teacher to come up with a daily plan for how to use this app in the classroom. 

App Details

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