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Pen Still Mightier Than the Laptop For Notetaking?

Posted by kdawson on from the highly-evolved-metaphor dept.

theodp writes "While waiting to see if the iPad is a game-changer, this CS student continues to take class notes with pen and paper while her fellow students embrace netbooks and notebooks. Why? In addition to finding the act of writing helps cement the lecture material in her mind, there's also the problem of keeping up with the professor: '[While taking notes on a laptop] every five minutes I found myself cursing at not being able to copy the diagram on the board.' So, when it comes to education or business, do you take notes on a notepad/netbook, or stick with good old-fashioned handwriting? Got any tips for making the transition, or arguments for staying the course?"

39 of 569 comments (clear)

  1. Notes by sopssa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Taking notes on notepad/netbook is an extremely good idea, and now with WiFi's and 3G's everywhere, you can also chat, email, post insightful posts to slashdot, and go raid in World of Warcraft all at the same time. It also lets you work on your latest coding project or post updates to facebook and twitter. If you're getting hungry towards end of the class, you can just use Google Maps to search for some good pizza joint nearby.

    Oh notes.. "what notes? I was a little bit busy online..."

    But what does iPad have to do with this? Even if we ignore the fact that iPad doesn't even have a stylus, writing with such is laggy and just messes up the text. You write a lot better on paper. The technology isn't there just yet.

    And then theres the thing that with your written notes you're more likely to actually read them again. Write them on computer and you just shove them to some obscure location and never read them again.

    1. Re:Notes by clang_jangle · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I actually like my old Palm PDA for taking notes in handwriting with the stylus. Takes up almost no room at all, and quick sketches are as easy as writing.

      --
      Caveat Utilitor
    2. Re:Notes by dark404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Then you've been using shitty fountain pens.

    3. Re:Notes by nicknamenotavailable · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't want to seem like a troll, but while you did mention HP twice in your post you also said that previously you used a Fountain pen for note-taking.
      If you know how to use a fountain pen, chances are your writing is far better than the majority of the (younger)population out there, many of whom have never even seen a fountain pen. Therefore your experience with hand writing recognition software will be different than most.
      But can you elaborate on what software you use?

    4. Re:Notes by BetterSense · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I find my fountain pens more reliable than ballpoint pens, but less reliable than pencils. For large amounts of writing, nothing beats a decent fountain pen and some decent premium laser paper. I figured this out in college when I was getting cramps from taking pages of notes and doing pages of math with ballpoints and pencils. Then I discovered that there was this new pen technology out there that doesn't require any down pressure at all and makes writing much easier and more efficient, called a "fountain pen". Now I realize that ballpoints are for signing checks at the bank line other sporadic tasks; real amounts of writing call for real writing tools.

  2. Pencil. by ThrowAwaySociety · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because it's erasable. Use a hard (light) pencil to avoid smearing, or recopy later.

    Also, not having a laptop discourages you from checking email, facebook, or playing games.

  3. Notes? by Hatta · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Professors should post their slides on the web, and students should spend their time listening, thinking, and asking questions instead of writing. Anything less and students become mere stenographers, only retaining long enough to commit to paper.

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    1. Re:Notes? by DesScorp · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Professors should post their slides on the web, and students should spend their time listening, thinking, and asking questions instead of writing. Anything less and students become mere stenographers, only retaining long enough to commit to paper.

      In my case, my understanding and retention of the material was always aided in taking notes during the lectures. And what if he's covering stuff not in the book? Without notes, you'd better have a photographic memory.

      --
      Life is hard, and the world is cruel
    2. Re:Notes? by djconrad · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The problem with putting slides online is it encourages students to skip lectures. Unless the instructor is posting a written version of his lecture, students only reviewing slides online will not benefit from any comments the instructor makes. Anyway slides should be a supplement and illustration of the lecture, rather than the lecture expounding the slides.

    3. Re:Notes? by csokat · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The best professors I had we're chalk and board - no need for slides.

    4. Re:Notes? by six11 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Since I don't have mod points and can't mod you up, I'll just beg somebody else to do it.

      There's a camp of people that believe the role of a teacher is to pour information into student's flip-top heads. In this case, teachers are expected to produce lots of artefacts like slides, notes, even videos of lectures. Students have to just sit there and pay attention. Later they might be asked to regurgitate something in a test, which ostensibly serves as a measure of how much was learned.

      Another camp believes learners have to construct knowledge on their own, and that usually involves writing, making diagrams, answering questions, and finding interesting questions to ask. Since students have a more active role in making sense of it all, the role of teaching involves attending to the particular needs, confusions, and misunderstandings of students as they come up. Students are responsible for their own learning.

      In the first mode, students are consumers. In the second, they are producers. These are completely opposite perspectives, and it translates directly into the attitude students take in their educational experience, which sets the tone for the rest of life.

  4. At My University by dawilcox · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At my university, most CS students do not take notes at all. It's kind of foreign to see someone taking notes in a CS course. I assume it is because CS courses are about understanding the concept instead of memorizing information. Because it's not as much memorization, note taking is not as needed.

  5. Pen and paper by Hazelfield · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I use good old pen and paper. It's versatile, it's cheap, it's lightweight and it never suffers from hangups, startup times etc.

    Instead of thinking "how could I use a digital device to take notes?" you should ask yourself "why do I want my notes to be digital?". Myself, I rarely feel that need as I mostly take notes to study from (less important) and stay awake at lectures (more important). Neither of these reasons require notes in the form of computer files.

    On the other hand, you could easily think of several other uses for digital notes. You can share them with friends. You can upload them to somewhere, letting the whole class benefit from them. You can copy them easily. You can store and arrange them easily. You can send them to people on the other side of the Earth, should you want to. But do you want to? That's the question you should answer before making the switch.

  6. Why do we even take notes? by CoolGuySteve · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I graduated 3 years ago, but it bothered me immensely when professors would write things on the board that weren't duplicated in the course notes. It was just a lazy way to enforce attendance. I always learned better out of books than by listening to someone, so sitting around in class just to transcribe felt like a waste of time.

    So this whole issue of not having diagrams or about which device to use seems like a manufactured problem. Putting a PDF on the course website with all the diagrams and text would render it moot.

    1. Re:Why do we even take notes? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2, Insightful

      it bothered me immensely when professors would write things on the board that weren't duplicated in the course notes ... Putting a PDF on the course website with all the diagrams and text would render it moot.

      For shame that professor not taking all the notes for you. Christ you're spoiled. Books are the just basis, instruction fills in - unless you went to a crappy school, with crappy instructors. Three years out of school. So sad. So much more to learn.

      This whole discussion is pointless. People learned for thousands of years without laptops, taking manual notes. I'll wager modern electronics haven't increased the educational experience or results that dramatically.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  7. At Law School... by Oxford_Comma_Lover · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At law school, everyone uses laptops. It's a different world than the world of pen and paper. There are a very few students who still take notes the old-fashioned way, and they do remarkably well sometimes, but the simple fact is that when you have a particularly intense class you can get down a lot more information typing than you can with pen and paper.

    You still have to be disciplined--turning off your network devices can be helpful, and you also have to avoid taking notes just because everyone else is. (There are times when one person starts typing, then another, and it snowballs, even when there's nothing noteworthy being discussed.) But if you use the laptop as a tool, it's a very effective one. It also lets you learn a bit more, because you can actually do some outside research during class which enriches it for everyone.

    --
    -- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
    1. Re:At Law School... by ameoba · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I could see this working in law school; you probably don't have the sorts of complex equations and diagrams that students are likely to see in science, math & engineering.

      --
      my sig's at the bottom of the page.
    2. Re:At Law School... by dancingmad · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Also, you may get more "information," typing down, but I feel like in actuality most students typing notes are acting more like stenographers than note takers. They don't process anything they hear, they just copy it down verbatim. Writing by hand, I have to measure what is being said, digest it to some degree, and then write down the important part. Occasionally I miss something, when the professor is going a mile a minute, but I have never had a problem going up to the professor after the class and asking about what I missed.

      This would be more difficult if I didn't do the homework (another reason why so many students take notes on their laptop, I think), but since I usually do, I have an idea of what the cases are about and usually have highlighted important parts of the case. More often than not, my pre-class notes in the case are what the professor touches on anyway, so I just have to underline (I use a red pen in class, black or blue for pre-class notes, and various color highlighting for parts of the case before class) things I have already read, noted, and highlighted.

      --
      "There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
    3. Re:At Law School... by nine-times · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, this sort of thing is why pen & paper can still beat a laptop. If you're just jotting down some ideas or writing out a linear outline, then laptops can be good, especially considering that a lot of people under 30 write pretty slowly by hand and can type relatively quickly. However, if your notes contain a lot of mathematical symbols or technical diagrams, those things can be hard to input quickly with a keyboard and mouse.

      And even if your notes don't need symbols, typing notes can get wonky, depending on the subject and what kind of note-taker you are. In my notes, you always see things scrawled all over the page, laid out in a web with some things circled and big arrows drawn all over the place. Sometimes it also helps me concentrate if I can doodle (I don't know why). Back in college I learned that if I really wanted to learn something, I had to take notes by hand, and then go back and organize my notes in a more linear way and type them up. That's my general recommendation on how to handle things, but different people are different and YMMV.

      Some of it may be helped by something with a touchscreen and stylus, but I'm not sure pen and paper aren't still superior.

    4. Re:At Law School... by J+Story · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why not simply take a picture of the diagrams and embed them with the notes later?

    5. Re:At Law School... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I'm in law school now, coming from 10+ years as a software developer. Law is a system like any, and diagramming (yay for UML) is still the best method (IMHO) to communicate and understand a system.

      I don't take any of my laptops to class; I strictly focus on pen and paper. Not only is it more flexible, writing encourages retention, typing up the notes later encourages retention and I'm not online mucking about during class. Honestly, with what I see most of my classmates doing online during class, I think laptops shouldn't be allowed in (or at least internet disabled).

    6. Re:At Law School... by rhsanborn · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Another alternative I've seen is a combination of laptop and paper. Typing notes where you can, and using paper when needed for equations and diagrams. Mention the diagram in the typed notes for reference. It can be scanned after class or simply filed.

    7. Re:At Law School... by EL_mal0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I have done this. I recommend against it.

      Giving the students the slides before class has two side effects: 1) Some students don't come to class. 2) Those that do come to class tend to take fewer notes, leading to decreased comprehension.

  8. Depends on the class by cetialphav · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Within the computer science realm, I found there were two major lecture methods being used. The first and most common was a lecture based off of powerpoint slides and the slides are almost always available in advance. Those classes are easy because you can just print the slides (or view them on your notebook) and just take some small notes on the few things not covered in the slides.

    The other major method was usually for the more mathematically oriented classes and involved seeing hand-written proofs, equations and diagrams. I think the best method was to use pen and paper to write things down. Then, the next day I transcribe those notes into a LaTeX document. Transcribing makes you go back and follow through all the math and you can take your time to make sure it looks nice. I then study off of the electronic version (which I call my cheatsheet).

    As a side note, I always recommend making cheatsheets for every class. It isn't that you actually cheat, but you say if I were going to cheat, what would I want to have with me. It forces you to concisely summarize the class in a small space and is very useful and forces you to go beyond just tryng to memorize things.

  9. Re:Depends on the class. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You say "these professors still exist" like its a bad thing. As someone who teaches undergraduates, I find that somewhat offensive. Aside from the fact that hearing someone type is somewhat annoying and distracting if they have heavy fingers, the reality is that most students can type much faster than they can write. As a result, many tend to type up whatever is on the board and then go back to surfing the web, playing games, etc. Their expectation is that whatever is up on the board is all they need to know, and the class becomes reduced to whatever is projected up on the screen because they quit paying attention. This is compounded by the fact that the typists have to wait for the writers to finish, increasing the length of time available to give in to temptation. While I am certainly aware that students goofed off and did not pay attention long before the invention of the laptop (I was frequently one of those students doodling and such), the technology certainly makes it a lot easier and a lot more probable for those with low self control.

    The reality is that before we embrace new technologies whole heartedly, we need to ask seriously whether or not the technology actually adds anything beneficial to our lives. Although laptops are incredibly useful for a variety of reasons, their value in a class if often very limited, if there at all. I don't restrict the value of laptops because I want complete control of the classroom (such a thing is not possible), I restrict the use of laptops because I want limit the kinds of distractions which take away from the learning process.

  10. Don't take notes during lectures by vlm · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Notes should not be taken during lectures. Take notes while you do the readings. All you have to do is note any interesting anecdotes, and record examples, as they often appear on the tests with little change.

    Decades later, I still remember watching my classmates furiously scribbling stuff in calc class as though they'd never heard of this stuff until moments ago, while I sat back, relaxed, yet confused... And then suddenly realizing, they probably had never heard of this stuff, because they did not read their textbook...

    Even in those fluffy politically correct liberal arts classes, you can pretty much guess what the lecturer is going to talk about.

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    1. Re:Don't take notes during lectures by bloobloo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why were you taking courses that you already understood?

    2. Re:Don't take notes during lectures by barzok · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The OP didn't say he "already understood" the class. Rather, he read the material in the textbook before the lecture, and took notes only to fill in what he didn't pick up from the book (or to reinforce things he was sketchy on).

    3. Re:Don't take notes during lectures by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      First, I think you missed the point. Second, sometimes you're required to take a course that covers very familiar material.

      I hated taking notes in class. I would preview the relevant material before the lecture. During the lecture I would only take notes on things that weren't in the source material. The margins of my books (which I still have) carry various shortcuts, observations, gotcha's, corrections, etc. pointed out during lectures. Why take notes when I just paid for a bound, indexed, and generally pretty solid book (usually in color)?

      I also took quite a few courses that covered material I was already familiar with. I had been exposed to CS and EE my whole life. Plus, I elected to work for a few years before getting my degree. I found myself in a unique position in most of my courses -- most of the material was familiar to me and I could see the material in context -- where have/was I going to use this?

      In the end I got the official degrees required by so many companies and filled in some knowledge gaps. The main thing I learned was most of my courses emphasized skills and materials that were more useful to an academic career than a practical real world career.

  11. Re:Are you guys mad? by Coryoth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't your mobile phones take videos? Record the lecture. Take photos of the diagrams. Narrate your own thoughts and comments.

    I want notes to provide a condensed version of the lecture that I can study from. If the only way to revisit material from the lecture is to sit through the whole damn thing again on video then I've achieved little. Yes, yes, you can jump to a portion, but you're still left wading through a mass of material to find what you want. I want brief concise notes that hit the high points that are relevant to my understanding of the material (skip over bits I find easy, provide elaboration on parts I foubnd more challenging). That's the whole damn point of taking notes; and those notes are the whole damn point of going through the lecture.

    --
    Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
  12. Pencil and Paper by pipingguy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    As an old fart, 30 years experienced draftsman (a trade that "changed" due to computers, making my artistic ability and talent obsolete) I gotta go with good old writing utensils.

    I've evolved and "embrace" CAD technology, but scribbling/doodling on paper is the best way to focus the mind. When I draw I want as little interference as possible between my brain/eyes and my hand.

    Maybe I'm weird though.

  13. Re:Wait... by jo_ham · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yup, best way to learn I have found, even in 2010.

  14. Let them be distracted, it's their choice by syousef · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For pity sake, let the student be responsible for their own learning. If they want to use a tool to do it they should be permitted to. At university level, and I'd argue earlier, the student is responsible for learning. If they don't want to learn and are so easily distracted, let them be. That is their choice. Banning an item that might help a student who is there and wants to learn so that a lazy student that doesn't care is not distracted is completely irresponsible. If a student is intent on being distracted they can always do something that doesn't require a computer, like doodle, or even something that you can't prevent like daydream. There are only a couple of exceptions. If the student's distraction becomes disruptive or distracts others (for example a noisy keyboard that prevents concentration) that the lecturer should step in. If the tool interferes with assessment. (eg. Internet in a closed book exam) it should not be permitted (but then I consider closed book exams archaic).

    When I lectured part time a lot of lecturers were having trouble with students talking through the lecture. I had a simple approach. I stopped talking if I was being talked over. It worked really well. I treated the students as adults and I gave them respect. I expected the same in return. If they didn't want to be there they were free to leave.

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    1. Re:Let them be distracted, it's their choice by nlawalker · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Amen. Cater to the students who are there to learn and let them use their tools as long as they're not distracting others. Ignore the rest.

  15. Re:Another data point... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Have you tried suggesting to her that she take notes by hand? You know, that is what a good teacher would have done the second time he saw her taking the same class. Teachers are there to help the students succeed in learning the material, after all.

    If you haven't, that's pretty pathetic on your part.

  16. Missed market by xtal · · Score: 2, Insightful

    For all of the hype and drama surrounding the ipad and Kindle, there's been a pretty big missed market.

    I would pay a _lot_ of money for a 8.5x11" screen that had enough resolution to behave like my old gridded engineering paper. I can't back up engineering paper, and I can't take it around with me easily. I go through about ~1000 sheets/year, and have several boxes of notes I'd love to have with me. In university, a decade ago, I'd take notes and scan them after - that worked, ok. Enough of a pain I don't do it anymore.

    Tried the Newton back then, and the Palm too. The resolution resulted in doodles that looked like do-do, not drawings.

    It amazed me though - all of my technical documentation is standard A4 PDF's, why don't we have a standard A4 device I can write on a decade later? That's all it has to do!

    --
    ..don't panic
    1. Re:Missed market by Mr.+Freeman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "You can photograph documents pretty easily. I'm not sure there's much purpose to scanners anymore"
      Taking a picture of a page of paper? Are you serious? What the hell are you basing this on? Without a high quality camera and software that will crop out/rotate/skew the image into the proper format (a la expensive book scanners) taking pictures of notes looks completely unprofessional and unreadable.

      --
      -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
  17. Train Your Hand / Arm Muscles by Jucius+Maximus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Although I graduated some years back, I still advocate the use of pen and paper to students because of final exams. You are going to be sitting in the gymnasiums writing 15 hours of exams in the space of a few days. By hand. On paper.

    If you haven't been training up your hand all semester, your arm is going to break down after about 20 minutes because your muscles are not used to manual writing. Good luck being effective on your exams when your wrist is about to fall off.

    I experienced this a couple of years out of school when I chose to write the Professional Practice Exam. About 45 minutes into the three hour exam in the freezing cold gym at University of Toronto, I just about gnawed my hand off.

    1. Re:Train Your Hand / Arm Muscles by SoTerrified · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So it's not just me... I returned to school after graduating a decade previous in order to brush up on newer technologies. (Working while taking classes part-time). Luckily, as it was a computer class, the lecturer would put up his presentations before the class so we could download them to our laptops and follow along. The need to draw diagrams was removed, and I could just edit the documents with details of in-class discussions, so the need to hand write was not an issue. Since it was a project class, there was no mid-term.

      HOWEVER, when I went to write the final, my hand quickly became the claw about 30 minutes in. I had not only avoided handwriting in class, I haven't hand written more than a sketch in 10 years. (I type 100+ wpm and actually type faster than I can write. Why would I?) I finished the exam in so much pain.

      I got 100% on the part of the exam I completed. However, I was only able to complete 80% of the exam due to severe pain in my writing hand, resulting in a mark that was not a fair representation of my knowledge. It's frustrating knowing that if I had been able to type or orally provide my answers, I would've easily been in the top percentile. (10 years of industry experience being very helpful)