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Pen Still Mightier Than the Laptop For Notetaking?
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?"
Actually I just picked up the HP TM2 tablet. That with one note is awesome for note taking. Being a CS grad student myself, diagrams and more importantly equations drove me nuts trying to take notes before so I relied on my trusty fountain pen and a tablet of paper, but the hand writing recognition is really there _now_ for tablets, and the hp gets great battery life.
During my undergraduate physics degree I started by taking notes on paper, however I started to notice I was struggling to read my handwriting. I soon moved onto typing notes, in openoffice, using its built in equation editor, and attempting to draw diagrams with a stylus on a graphics tablet. After a year of doing this I realised it was a bit of a struggle to keep up, but in the mean time had learnt LaTeX. Then I stumbled upon an even better solution, type the notes (and equations - managing to keep up with the lecturer), and leave a space in the notes for the diagrams (i.e. setup the environment and name them in ascending order fig1, fig2 etc), but draw the diagrams manually on paper. Then I could copy the diagram at a later point into the LaTeX document using the graphics package of my choice (and for the particle physics module, feynmf for LaTeX proved particularly helpful). It is actually possible to keep up with the lecturer, so long as you reach the point that when typing you don't have to think about what your typing for things such as \alpha and so on. You also have to be fairly accurate with your typing, and be able to visualise how the notes are going to look without compiling them. Overall, if you don't think yourself capable of that, stick to pen and paper, if you do and you have troubles reading your own handwriting when trying to scribble quickly (I can type much faster than I can write legibly), then it is worth looking into.
I've been out of a college class for a few years, but I simply would and still prefer paper/pen. It's not about being old school, but I am extremely picky about what I want technology doing for me. I tend to be uncompromising and really think out what some input device will do for me. I want technology that works the way I do, not me having to compromise heavily in order to use it. I have yet to see something that fits the flexibility of pen/paper while giving me the advantage of a digital device thought those electronic note taking pens are probably close.
I can tell you me typing for an hour on a netbook would lead to uncomfortable typing, as netbooks have too small a size. I could probably swing a regular sized laptop like my 15" Macbook Pro, or other similar full size key laptop.
I also have my own short hand method of note taking, coupled with identifying things that I don't need to memorize and things that have to be written down. Also I tend to circle important bits of information and tie them together with arrows pointing to what they relate to creating a type of cluster diagram meshed in with regular note taking. I don't see how any laptop software out there can compare there.
I am hopeful that a well thought out, well implemented tablet PC comes along that gives me good flexibility.
That said I can imagine taking my ipod touch or other such small form tablet device and scribble or look up some info on it while I take notes with pen/paper. As I was thinking about this I considered an iPhone or other similar device being indispensable, since you can take a photo of the board if there is a complex diagram, and simply drop a note on paper (see iPhone pict for blah diagram). ;-)
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This seems like the optimal division of time and one that keeps classroom discussions relevant. It also means that not having laptops and cell phones can actually make for a better overall experience.
But with a real tablet computer and a stylus (e.g. Lenovo x-series tablets), in addition to erasing you also get a pencil that can cut & paste, resize, move, add space in the middle of the page, highlight, color, change the color of already written text, and annotate pdfs (in case the lecturer hands out slides in pdf format), and undo.
It's called Xournal. I frakking love it. Completely changed the way I work. Now I don't have to carry a backpack full of printed articles.
I also use Zotero. It's a bibliographic database add-on for firefox, and it will store full-text pdf's. If you set up xournal as your default pdf viewer, you can annotate and store the annotations for papers. So I no longer carry any printed paper or notes anymore.
If you're in science or engineering and deal in diagrams, equations, and journal articles, this beats the crap out of paper & pencil.
I hope to see more real tablet computers this year. Everyone has decided to stop manufacturing tablets with high-resolution screens, and use wide screens too, which means in portrait mode your tablet is blocky (can't read subscripts of equations) and too tall (because it's 16:10 rather than 4:3). So while the iPad sucks on all the above points, I hope it spurs some new & interesting tablets this year. Pen input (wacom) also needs improvement, especially near the edges of the screens where precision is lost.
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
I hate to say this on Slashdot... but have you tried.. : gulp : Microsoft Word? At least on the Mac version, it has this great feature... It records audio while you're taking notes, and next to every line of notes is a little speaker icon. If you click the speaker icon, it starts playing starting at the point you added that line of notes. It's great for just writing down the basic concepts, and then jumping through the audio to get the detailed lecture.
I would defy you to pass one of my chemistry classes without attending class.
I have never had a student pass without regular attendance. I've taught at three public universities, two private colleges and physics at one public community college (so I think my student demographic has been quite diverse).
I did not REQUIRE attendance to pass, nor link grades/points to attendance in any, way shape or form. Scores/final grades were 100% performance based.
I only rarely lectured on material not in the text book, though I often presented the material differently than the text presentation.
As I told my students on the first day, "I don't care if you learn it from me, the book, your room mate or who ever, if you can do the work, you'll pass."
Generally, the people who did not attend regularly scored in the teens on the tests, or even single digits, on the tests.
Computational Chemistry products and services.
Agreed, there are a lot of good fountain pens out there. I use some pilot disposables when I have no other choice, when I'm in my cube I have a nice sheaffer snorkel with a solid palladium nib, if you don't mind laying down some cash I would highly recommend the namiki vanishing points. But really, you should be able to pick up an amazingly reliable, beautiful old parker or sheaffer on ebay for not much. Just don't use crap and it will be way better than ball points.
It's either false dichotomies, or the terrorists win, you decide.