Now Notion provides free Personal Pro Plan to educators and students. Through this guide, you will learn about what Notion is and how this productivity application can support your personal life, work and study.

What is Notion?

Notion is a productivity application where you can create notes, databases, wikis, calendars and reminders, etc. All these features can be used individually or in collaboration with others. It supports multiple platforms (Windows / MacOS, IOS / Android) and desktop applications. The databases in Notion will be automatically saved and synced among different platforms and devices. You can download a desktop application via https://www.notion.so/desktop.

Create an account


Before you start exploring Notion, you need to create a Notion account with three steps:

  1. Click ‘Get Notion free’ on notion.so
  2. Type in your HKU email address in ‘Work email’
  3. Copy and paste the Sign up code you received in your mailbox
  4. Click ‘Create a new account’
  5. Add your name and set a password
  6. Select ‘For personal use’

Upgrade to Personal Pro Plan


Different from the free Personal Plan designed for individual use, the Personal Pro Plan allows you to collaborate with more people. With the Personal Pro plan, you will have unlimited pages and blocks, guests and files uploaded.

For first-time users:

If you create the Notion account with your university email via HKU Portal, your account will be automatically upgraded to the Personal Pro Plan for free. To check if you are enjoying the Personal Pro Plan, go to the sidebar, then click on ‘Settings & Members’ and ‘Plans’. Besides, you can also manage your account information, notifications, connected apps, language & region, appearance, billing and integrations inside ‘Settings & Members’.

For those who already have a Notion account:

If you already have a Notion account with your personal email, you can upgrade to the Personal Pro Plan for free by changing your login email account to the university email. To achieve this, please go to ‘Settings & Members’, ‘My account’, ‘Email’ then click on ‘Change email’.

Check out the video for a demonstration:

[Playlist - How to use Notion for Education: https://bit.ly/notionathku](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKjNzcORTxE&ab_channel=TELIResearchandDevelopment)

Playlist - How to use Notion for Education: https://bit.ly/notionathku

Create Your First Page


After successfully logging in, you can create a new Page by clicking on the plus sign (‘+’) button on the sidebar. Watch the tutorial video to learn some basic features, including how to add an icon and cover to a Page, create Blocks, and adjust the layout.

[Playlist - How to use Notion for Education: https://bit.ly/notionathku](https://youtu.be/HRwN0HhdIuQ)

Playlist - How to use Notion for Education: https://bit.ly/notionathku

Customise your Page with Blocks and Databases