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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?"
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.
I've tried to do it on the laptop, but graphs, tables, annotations, colors, mathematical formalae (sometimes many of those together) are all too difficult to handle in a timely fashion when using a laptop.
I teach math at a university. In the last 10 years, I've only had one student who tried to take all her notes with a computer. This is her third time taking the course. Coincidence?
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.
Pen and paper for diagrams.
Notebook/netbook for plain text.
Convert your hand-drawn diagrams later, using a scanner or re-draw using a graphics tablet after class.
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.
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.
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Offer to share the information with your prof or student teacher and they will usually give you the green light or become the note taker for the class (some schools have them for hard of hearing/deaf students - R.I.T.)...
If you use something like MS OneNote you can drop all these separate pieces onto the note pages and keep them better organized. Text, your notes, the sound clips, and the diagrams...
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.
I have used pulse pen http://www.livescribe.com/Smartpen/index.html for a few years it records audio and text to be transfered to PC
Why, I wrote up this very comment with a quill pen on foolscap before having my secretary type it in to this new-fangled "analytical engine" thing.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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.
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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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.
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!
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.
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.
I take the notes with a pen and paper and also record everything with a voice recorder. Since I'm taking mostly math courses, it works out quite well. I focus on writing the formula with annotations, and then when the lecture is over, I reconstruct the whole thing. The annotations help to connect the voice recording and my scribbles. That takes some extra time, of course, but the end result is detailed lecture, with everything on a blackboard carefully reconstructed. As a last shot, I typeset the whole thing in LaTeX (if I have time).
I think, if you start using computer (tablet or whatever), you won't have the ``instant connection to the recording media" that pen and paper provide.
As a side note, my favorite professor normally creates some handwritten outline of the lecture, but all the proofs and staff he does on the fly. By accident, while talking to him, I've mentioned I have recorded and typeset his lectures. He looked at them and liked them so much he asked me if he can use them as a supplementary material for his course(s). I didn't mind at all, of course.
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
My thermodynamics professor last semester had amazing penmanship, and he inspired me to work on my horrible chicken scratches. I almost never took notes in class because my notes were simply too awful-looking, so I didn't enjoy the process of writing. I worked at my penmanship with some online guides, and bought a slightly weightier pen (Parker IM gel). After practicing my cursive over the winter break and writing at every possible moment, I've seen some definite improvement. More importantly, I now enjoy writing and looking at the finished product. I recently bought a $25 fountain pen and some $5 Piccadilly notepads (Moleskine lookalikes), and my notes have improved even more. Anyways, I think that if we worked on our penmanship a little, we'd enjoy taking notes in class a lot more. And correspondingly, we'd get more out of each lecture! It definitely worked for me.
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.
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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.
Yup, best way to learn I have found, even in 2010.
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.
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I found that a small digital camera solved the diagram issue just fine. 5 minutes later at night to integrate the image with my notes and I was ready to go, and it encouraged me to actually re-read my notes. Highlighting or back-editing is easier, making study guides is a snap, I can tap-tap much faster than I can scribble-scribble and since my writing hasn't improved since grade-10 Chem class when I started writing in all-caps, (and it still looks like a composition of someone in grade-4), I actually CAN read, study and share my notes. Go laptop, go!
The best datum I can offer is a course I took a few years ago on error control coding.
Each week the prof got somebody to volunteer to take very good notes, type them up in LaTeX, then he would distribute them to the rest of the class for reference. The "scribe", as he called the role, got extra credit. The week I volunteered to be scribe it took 8 hours to turn 2 hours of lectures in to something presentable and machine-readable. This included 28 diagrams in Xfig, plus numerous equations.
I started a night school course last week (private pilot ground school, if you're curious). My notes are by hand, plus some highlighter work in the textbooks. I haven't the slightest interest in transcribing them. Why would I? They're my notes, written by me.
Old-tech really is the best tech some times.
...laura
I'm a big fan re-writing notes, it forces you to re-examine the stuff that didn't totally sink in
during lecture. Rewriting them in digital form makes it that much more portable, cleaner, and
you can bring your friends up to speed faster. Engineering notebooks (wire bound) plus a good
mechanical pencil was what I settled while I was an engineering student. Couple re-writing
the notes in digital form with a audio recording of the lecture and you're golden. Alternatively,
you can scan your notes in and then annotate them.
Tablet computers were always good for homework.
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Hi theodp Try a digital pen. It writes on paper (specially printed but you can do that yourself). It uses a ball point refill and has a tiny built in camera which records all of your pen strokes. You can then tick a pre-programmed box on the paper and that page is emailed using the bluetooth on your phone. Simple. If you need more help then please let me know. (UK)
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
Not to be a shill, but I've been using the Livescribe Pulsepen for about a year and it's perfect for class notes. It records what you write then uploads your notes to your computer, along with audio that is sync'd to your notes, so you can hear what was being said while you were writing. You can convert notes to text using 3rd party software, but I've found it to be better just to leave it in handwritten form. The search function actually works pretty well for handwritten notes.
Yes, the handwriting recognition is terrible, but there is no need to use it. There is a stylus keyboard and a full-screen virtual finger keyboard, and the finger keyboard is definitely faster than graffiti. For math and diagrams, however, I can just write directly, which is why the N800 beats a netbook for notetaking. I just wish I had time to give Xournal some love, or at least make it auto-save.
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'm working on integrating my handwriting with T9 for notetaking purposes.
How does that work? You write "tgd ppmgpam" on a piece of paper when you're making a note on "the program"?
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I got a hold of a Tablet PC during my Junior year of my CS degree, just in time for my advanced Algorithms class.
Fun. Lots and lots of fun. Thanks to OneNote I didn't have to touch paper for an entire year. I did everything in OneNote, including homework, which was exported and emailed into my profs.
OneNote syncs up notes with audio recordings taken during lectures/meetings/etc, and my Tablet had a 3d Mic Array, which means it had (IIRC) 3 microphones spread out around it and I could tell the software which direction to emphasis recording from.
The model was a Toshiba M200, 12" screen long before the current trend of smaller laptops was in style. Everyone was lugging around their 15" monster laptop that had an hour or so battery life, at the start of each lecture they would rush to the power outlets so that they could feed their machine. My 3hr battery life lasted me through an entire day of lectures.
Studies have shown [citation needed] that the physical act of writing notes helps with both comprehension and recall. I have always hated taking notes out, my fine motor skills are horrible and I writing hurts my writes like hell, but the benefits were so obvious that I continued to do so anyway.
The only problem with laptops in classrooms is that I tended to post a lot on /. during boring lectures...
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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.
Maybe it's psychological, but I only sometimes find that to be the case. If I'm typing a continuous stream of prose as I put it together in my mind, I find that typing is far faster. Transcribing or note taking from an external source, however, and I find handwriting to be more fluid, and easier to keep up with.
I'm sure my opinion has been swayed by the fact that I can easily go through a lecture with far more equations than actual words, a notoriously bad situation for the keyboard, but nonetheless my findings apply to words-only notes too.
My current theory is that it might be something to do with mistakes. Even as a fairly accurate typist, errors creep in and naturally I stop to correct them - this is fine when I'm typing free from external sources, my brain pauses for the half-second or so that it takes to make the correction. That brief pause, however, breaks the 'flow' in my head when listening to a lecture - it's not the time itself, but the loss of synchronisation with what I'm listening to. Handwriting, while not necessarily error free, doesn't have the same kind of problems with transposed letters and so on and thus keeps a continuous pace.