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Your own notebook inside AltEd — a Notion-style page editor with blocks you can move and convert, filed into notebooks, tagged, colour-coded, linked to each other, and shared with the people you work with by mentioning them. Guardians and providers have it on the dashboard; a learner with their own sign-in has it in their portal.
What it does
Notes gives every signed-in person a private notebook. Nobody else on AltEd can see your notes, whatever their role — unless you mention them in one, which shares that note with them to read (see Mention someone below).
Each note is a page made of blocks — paragraphs, headings, lists, to-do lists, quotes, code and dividers. Blocks can be created from a menu, turned into other kinds of block, duplicated, moved and dragged around. There is no toolbar: formatting appears only when you select text, and everything else comes from typing a trigger character:
Ready to follow along in the app?
No password, no card — a magic link and you're in.
/ opens the block menu — pick what the current line becomes (or insert a divider, today's date, a reference or an emoji).
@mentions a person you work with, or links one of your notes or notebooks. The menu opens as soon as you type @. Mentioning a person shares the note with them; a linked note lists yours under Referenced by.
#tags the note inline. Tags you type become real tags, listed in the Tags rail so you can filter by them later.
: completes an emoji by name, e.g. :rocket.
Markdown shortcuts still work as you type: # then a space starts a heading, - a bulleted list, 1. a numbered list, [] a to-do, > a quote, and **bold** becomes bold.
The same editor appears wherever you write prose elsewhere — assignment instructions and feedback, lesson content, learner notes, portfolio entries and resource descriptions — so it behaves the same everywhere.
Where to find it
Guardians: Notes in the side menu, under Learning
Providers: Notes, the last item under Provision; administrators: Notes under Learning
Learners with their own sign-in: Notes in the portal's navigation
URLs: /dashboard/notes (dashboard) and /learn/notes (learner portal)
From anywhere on the dashboard: press ⌘K and choose New note
Step by step
Write a note
Select New note (or press n while nothing is focused). The title is ready to type into.
Type a title, then press Enter to move into the page.
Write. The note saves by itself — watch for Saving… then Saved in the top right.
On a new line, type / to choose a block, or just keep writing.
Notes: your notebooks and tags, the list, and the open note
Add, convert, move and remove blocks
Hover a block and a + and a grip (⋮⋮) appear in the left margin.
+ starts a new block underneath with the / menu already open.
Drag the grip to move the block somewhere else on the page (list items can be dragged individually).
Click the grip for the block's menu: Turn into (any other kind of block), Duplicate, Move up, Move down, Delete.
Select some text and a small toolbar appears over it: the block type (with Turn into), Bold, Italic, Strikethrough, Inline code and Link.
Type / at the start of a line or after a space and choose from the list — arrow keys and Enter, or click. Typing filters it: /h2, /todo, /quote.
Give a note an icon
Hover over the title and select Add icon (it appears above the title).
Search or browse the picker and choose an emoji. It shows beside the note in the list.
Open the picker again to change it, or choose Remove icon.
Notebooks can have icons too — see below.
Mention someone, or link a note or notebook
Type @. A menu opens straight away, in three groups:
People — the people you work with: for a guardian, your learners and the tutors and providers you're connected to; for a provider, the learners of families you're connected to and their guardians; for a learner, their guardian and their family's tutors.
Notes — your latest notes, and notes other people have shared with you.
Notebooks — your notebooks.
Keep typing to narrow it (@pri), then pick with the arrow keys and Enter, or click.
The mention is inserted as a link. Click it to go there: a note opens, a notebook opens with its notes, a learner opens on their card or in the Learners list, and a person opens their page. In other text boxes around AltEd, where leaving by accident could lose what you've typed, hold Ctrl (⌘ on a Mac) and click instead.
Share a note by mentioning someone
Mentioning a person shares that note with them to read. They get a notification — "you mentioned you in a note" — and the note appears in their Shared with me section.
Under the title of your note, Shared with lists who can read it. Take the mention out of the text and the note stops being shared with them.
Only you share your notes. Under the title, Mentioned, but can't see it lists people the note names who can't read it — someone editing or suggesting changes to your note named them, or you stopped sharing with them. Select a name to share it with them; they're told, as a mention tells them.
They can read it and follow its links, but not change it, file it, tag it or delete it. It stays your note.
Sharing follows your working relationships. If a connection with a provider ends, the notes you shared with them — and the ones they shared with you — stop being readable straight away.
It doesn't depend on which view either of you is in. If you tutor and also home-educate, switching between the parent / guardian and provider views doesn't un-share anything, and neither does the other person switching.
A learner without their own sign-in can be mentioned (the link still goes to them), but has nowhere to read notes, so nothing is shared.
Mentioning someone again after taking them out won't send a second notification the same day.
A mention shares it to read. You can let someone edit it too — see below — and anyone you share with can make a copy of their own.
Read notes shared with you
Select Shared with me in the left rail. Each note shows who shared it. Opening one shows it read-only, with Shared byname· view only at the top (just View only on a phone). The people page of someone you work with also lists the notes they've shared with you, and the notes you've shared with them.
Let someone suggest changes, or edit your note
Under the title, Shared with lists everyone the note is shared with. Select a name.
Choose what they may do:
Read it — the default a mention gives.
Suggest changes — they write a proposal and you decide whether to keep it. Their name shows · can suggest.
Edit it too — they change the note directly. Their name shows · can edit.
They're told either way. To take it back, select the name again and choose Read it — or Stop sharing with them, which takes the note off their Shared with me altogether. Your text keeps their name, which moves to Mentioned, but can't see it; it stays unshared when you next change the note, until you select it there.
Only you can change what someone may do, and only for someone the note is already shared with (mention them first).
Learners can read a shared note and suggest changes to it — Edit it too is greyed out for them, so the words stay yours.
Someone who can edit changes the title and the words. Everything else stays yours: the notebook, colour, pin, tags, icon, archiving, deleting — and who it's shared with. If they mention someone, the note isn't shared with that person: the name appears under Mentioned, but can't see it, and the note is shared only if you select it. If they take someone's name out, the note stays shared with that person; it stops only when you take a name out yourself. Their hashtags use only tags you already have.
When they change your note, you're told once ("… edited your note"), however many changes they make before you look.
If the connection with them ends, they can't edit (or read) it any more, straight away.
Suggest changes to someone else's note
Open it from Shared with me (it says · can suggest in the list). At the top it says Shared byname· you can suggest, and a line under the title reminds you that what you write is a proposal. Write as you would in your own note — it saves as you type, and the indicator says Suggested rather than Saved.
The note itself doesn't change. Nobody else sees your wording until the owner keeps it.
You have one open suggestion per note: keep writing and it's the same proposal, and coming back to the note shows you your own draft, not the owner's.
The owner is told once that you've suggested changes, and told again when they answer — you'll hear whether they kept it.
Answer changes someone suggested to your note
When someone has suggested changes, a line under the title says so. Select Review suggestions:
The list shows who suggested what, newest first. Select one to read it.
What's different from your note as it stands is marked — removed words struck through, new ones highlighted.
Keep these changes puts them into the note, in their name (it appears in History as their change), and tells them. Decline leaves the note exactly as it is, and tells them that too.
If you changed the note while they were writing, keeping their suggestion puts both together. Where you both changed the same line, both versions are kept, one after the other, so you can tidy it up.
Anyone the kept text mentions who can't already see the note isn't shared with by keeping it: their name appears under Mentioned, but can't see it, for you to share if you choose.
Declined suggestions aren't part of the note's history.
Edit a note someone lets you edit
Open it from Shared with me (it says · can edit in the list). At the top it says Shared byname· you can edit. Write as you would in your own note — it saves as you type. The ⋯ menu offers History and Make a copy.
If the owner, or someone else they let edit, changes the note while you're writing, AltEd puts both sets of changes together when you save — you'll see "Someone else was editing this note too". If you both changed the same line, both versions are kept, one after the other, and it says so, so you can tidy it up.
See what changed, and put a note back
Changed since you last looked. When someone else has changed a note since you last opened it, a line under the title says who. Select Review changes to see what's different: removed words are struck through, new ones highlighted.
History. The ⋯ menu (or the clock button on a note you can only read) opens History: every change, newest first, with who made it. Changes someone makes within ten minutes of each other count as one. Select one to see what it changed. On a note shared with you, history starts when it was shared with you — nothing written and removed before then is shown.
Restore this version (your own notes only) puts the note back as it was at that change. A restore is a change too, so it appears in the history and you can undo it the same way.
History is kept for 90 days; the most recent version of a note is always kept.
Make a copy of a note shared with you
To change a note someone shared with you, make your own copy:
Open the note from Shared with me.
Select Make a copy at the top.
The copy — "title (copy)" — opens in All notes, ready to edit. The original stays theirs, unchanged.
The copy starts shared with nobody. The people mentioned in the original become plain names (@Priya Sharma, no longer a link), so copying never shares your copy with them or sends them a notification. To share your copy, mention them again. Links to notes and notebooks stay links, and hashtags become your own tags.
Tag a note
Inline: type # followed by the tag name (letters, numbers, - and _ — no spaces), then pick from the list or keep typing and accept New tag.
By hand: use the + tag box under the title and press Enter.
Remove a tag with the × on its chip. Tags you typed inline disappear on their own if you delete the hashtag from the text.
Organise with notebooks
Select + beside Notebooks in the left rail.
Give it a name, and optionally an Icon and a Colour, then select Create notebook.
File the open note with the notebook picker under its title (it says No notebook until you choose one), or drag a note's card from the list onto a notebook in the rail. Dropping it on All notes takes it out of its notebook; Undo on the confirmation puts it back.
Select a notebook in the rail to see only its notes. Drag a notebook by its grip (or focus it and use the arrow keys) to reorder the rail. The ⋯ menu beside each notebook offers Rename, icon or colour and Delete notebook — deleting a notebook keeps its notes, un-filed.
Colour-code and pin
The palette button under the title sets the note's colour, shown as a coloured bar on its card.
Pin keeps a note at the top of every list; the Pinned section shows only pinned notes.
Archive, duplicate or delete
The ⋯ menu at the top right of a note offers Move to notebook…, Duplicate (a copy titled "title (copy)" opens straight away, shared with the people the original is shared with now — anyone else it names waits under Mentioned, but can't see it), Archive — the note leaves every list except the Archive section, where Restore from archive brings it back — and Delete note, which removes it permanently after a confirmation.
Find a note again
Press / (or click Search notes…) and type — it matches titles and body text within the current section. Escape clears it.
Use the arrow keys to move through the list and Enter to open a note.
Sort the list by Last edited, Date created or Title with the control beside the count. Pinned notes always come first.
Or search from anywhere on the dashboard with ⌘K — your notes appear under Notes.
Arrange the screen
The two buttons in the workspace bar hide or show the sections rail and the note list. Hide both to write with the whole width; AltEd remembers your choice in this browser.
On a phone, the list and the open note take turns: opening a note shows the note, and Notes (top left) goes back to the list. The sections rail opens from the button in the workspace bar.
What each screen shows
Workspace bar — rail and list toggles, the current section's name, and New note.
Left rail — fixed sections (All notes, Pinned, Shared with me, Archive), then your Notebooks with their icon or colour dot and note counts, then your Tags with counts. Selecting any row filters the list.
Note list — search, the section's note count and sort, then a card per note: icon, title, when it was last edited, a line of preview, and its tags. Pinned notes carry a pin and sort first; a coloured bar shows the note's colour.
The page — the icon and title, a quiet row of properties (notebook, colour, pin, tags), Shared with when the note mentions someone, the block editor, then Referenced by links when other notes point here, and the created/updated dates. A note shared with you shows only its icon, title and text.
The trail — after following a mention, a strip of pills on the left (or a bar across the top on a phone) shows the way back: select the note's pill to return to it. See Getting started.
Tips and good to know
There is no Save button — notes save about a second after you stop typing, and when you switch away.
Everything is stored as plain Markdown text, so nothing you paste can carry hidden formatting or scripts, and a note prints and exports cleanly. That is also why the block menu offers exactly the blocks Markdown can express.
A reference's link keeps working even if you rename the note it points at (the link uses the note's id, not its title). It also works for whoever it's shared with: the same mention opens the right page for each reader.
Tag names are shared across your whole notebook: renaming a tag in the rail renames it on every note.
Keyboard: n new note, / search (when nothing is focused); in the editor, / blocks, @ mentions and links, # tags, : emoji; ⌘Z undoes.
Troubleshooting
Problem
What to try
The / menu didn't open
It opens at the start of a line or after a space — not in the middle of a word or a web address. Press Escape to close it, then try on a fresh line.
The @ list doesn't show someone
People appear only if you work with them — a connection for a provider and a family, your own learners, your family's tutors. Assignments and resources aren't offered any more; link to them from their own pages.
Someone says they can't open a note I shared
Check they're under Shared with on the note. A learner needs their own sign-in to read notes, and a provider needs a live connection to your family.
My suggestion hasn't appeared in the note
It won't until the owner keeps it. They've been told; the note only changes when they choose Keep these changes.
I can't find what someone suggested
Open the note: the line under the title says who suggested changes, with Review suggestions. Once you keep or decline one it isn't waiting any more — a kept one is in History.
The @ list is missing someone I work with
If you both tutor and home-educate, @ offers the people of the view you're in — your family and tutors, or the families you teach. Switch view to mention the others; a mention you made in one view keeps sharing in the other.
"Edit it too" is greyed out
That person is a learner. Learners can read a shared note and suggest changes to it, but the words stay yours.
I can't change the notebook or tags of a note I can edit
Those stay with the note's owner. You can change the title and the words; make a copy if you want your own to file.
My copy of a shared note isn't shared
That's deliberate — a copy starts shared with nobody, and its mentions became plain names. Mention someone again with @ to share your copy with them.
A tag I typed inline didn't appear
Tags start with a letter or number and can't contain spaces — #exam prep stops at #exam. Use #exam-prep.
A half-typed tag appeared while I was writing
Keep typing — the stub is replaced when the full hashtag is saved. Stray chips can also be removed with their ×.
I can't see the + and grip
They appear when the pointer is over a block on a wide screen. On a phone, use the / menu and the selection toolbar's Turn into instead.
I deleted a notebook by accident
Its notes are safe under All notes — only the grouping is gone.
A note I archived seems to have vanished
Archived notes only appear in the Archive section. Open it and choose Restore from archive.