Over the past 10 days, I have had a lot of questions about how educators can utilize PDF worksheets effectively. This is proving to be quite a headache, as not all students have printers at home, and the usual model of distributing a handout and having the students return it is not feasible.
I am going to present a few ideas and best practices I have collected, and hope they will be useful to any educator struggling with these issues. I will be updating this list with any new ideas and tools I come across.
1) Use Microsoft OneNote
OneNote allows educators to insert a PDF as a File Printout directly on a OneNote Page. Once the PDF is inserted in this way, OneNote allows students to write directly on the PDF using the built in drawing tools of OneNote. This works best if students have a Pen device for input, but as long as they have a touchscreen (OneNote works on pretty much any device), they can also use their fingers. Note that without a pen this will not be very accurate, but if teachers adapt their worksheets to allow for larger input areas this will work very well. Without a touchscrren they can use their mouse, but this adds to the difficulty. Do note that inserting PDFs into a Onenote page can cause issues if the PDF is large, as it might impact the synching of pages in your ClassNotebook.
OneNote, like many other Office tools, is available free of charge to all Educators, and creates a very efficient workflow when used as part of Microsoft Teams and Classnotebook.
2) Use Microsoft Word
It is not possible to insert a PDF file as a printout in word, but it is possible to insert a picture. This picture can then be drawn on just like in OneNote. Simply take any worksheet and take a screenshot or photo of it. Microsoft Office Lens is an ideal app to take photos in this way, as it automatically cleans up the picture for better legibility.
It is also ideal if used with Assignments in Microsoft Teams. You can attach an empty word document, or else a word document with the picture of a worksheet inserted. Students can then simply write on the word document and return the assignment to you. If you prefer them to do their work on a traditional piece of paper, they can do so and take a photo of the work, then insert it in the word document before returning the assignment to you. Like this, you can correct the document using drawing tools yourself, or assign marks using the grading tools in Microsoft Teams.
If you do not have a pen, and need to correct photos that students are sending you, you can use callout shapes to insert feedback directly over the picture:
Similar steps can be used in Powerpoint - the exact menu options will be different, but the principle is the same. Refer to this doc: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/insert-pdf-file-content-into-a-powerpoint-presentation-5e7719d5-508c-4c07-a3d4-68123c373a62
3) Use Microsoft Edge Browser
If you open a PDF in Microsoft Edge Browser (latest version, see screenshot), any PDF that you open becomes editable for annotations. This means students and teachers can write directly on the PDF, and then save a version of the PDF that includes the annotations.
4) Use external tools
I came across a great resource for those teachers who want editable PDFs, but do not have the means to produce them. The site www.liveworksheets.com offers a unique way of turning any traditional PDF into a fully interactive exercise book, where students can type answers (and get them automatically corrected), do things line joining lines and a variety of other functions. This is achieved through very simple editing and programming on the PDF sheet. While it involves a little bit of work, the finished PDF sheets are well worth it, and could be an ideal way for educators to turn their traditional worksheets into remote learning resources.
The worksheets can be embedded into Teams as a web tab, or shared through chat. The link can also be included in an assignment.
Here is a great video introduction to liveworksheet.com :