Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 235 posts

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#101

Post by mtpn »

bpyne wrote: post #87
hollander wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to college before laptops as well. Taking notes has two purposes. First to remember what was said in class, extras that are not in the book, and it's a good indicator of the exam questions. Second is processing what is said. Research has shown that writing down what you hear makes you better understand and remember what is said, then when you type it on your laptop. Even if you don't use the notes afterward, t…

lvoudour didn't seem to be arguing against the research so much as agreeing with cjsuk that the lecture model of teaching is ineffective for some population regardless of note-taking medium. The research shows that, of people who learn effectively in the lecture-style learning model, more of them learn better from taking notes on paper. But, there is a significant - I would never claim majority - population that does…

I avoided taking notes for much of college, except of key things I wanted to come back to on my own. So many people try to capture the whole content of a lecture in notes, but to me that’s more like transcribing than processing. What I found was if I listen like it’s a conversation, I can enjoy the lecture but then also have time to make connections and think about things. My notes did not reflect the lecture content itself, but instead were my own associations, reactione, and things I found interesting. But we are indeed not all alike.

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#102

Post by txcwpalpha »

Communitivity wrote: post #64

The idea that we can't use laptops in meetings is outdated. You can do active listening while taking notes, as long as you practice good note-taking instead of verbatim transcription. I typically use a concept-mapping tool such as CMapTools from the great folks at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) in Florida. That lets me capture the essential concepts from the meeting and the relations among those…

One of the arguments against laptops is that even when people are aware of the fact that they shouldn't take verbatim transcriptions, they still tend to do so when using laptops. Hand-writing notes tends to make it almost impossible to write verbatim transcriptions, which forces active listening and processing the information as it comes in.

It's very much a "YMMV" thing, as it's certainly possible to take great notes and listen well while using a laptop, but for the average person, laptops encourage bad meeting/lecture habits.

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#103

Post by ska »

amorphid wrote: post #90
cjsuk wrote: post #2

I will sit there in a meeting (or retrospectively in a university lecture) and regularly derive nothing of value at all from my notes, be they written or typed. It's the media that is wrong, not the note taking medium. You can't rewind a meeting or a lecture. You can't pause to think. You can't review the text in the middle. Everything is immediate, transient. If you lose the pace, then everything after that point is…

That's why lectures suck for me. I can't "listen fast enough", and I lost track of the lecture when I try to take notes. This is where something like Khan Academy is way awesome-r for my style of learning.

Lectures as part of course are designed to be attended after reviewing the material at least once on your own. That way you know what to look out for, and your notes will be a concise revision. Its astonishing how many students resist this fact, even when it is clearly spelled out for them.

Trying to write down everything the lecturer says is at best inefficient, and at worst a complete waste of time when you lose the thread.

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#104

Post by walshemj »

walshemj wrote: post #27

Actually laptops in a meetings can be useful as they can replace a lot of paper.

Really down voted ever worked in properly run organisations with proper procedures ISO 9000 or BS 7570? even more so in parliamentary based orgs having to lug around 4 or 5 ring binders of paper gets old quickly

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#105

Post by txcwpalpha »

ttlaxia wrote: post #61

I took notes in college in org-mode on a little eeepc and graduated summa. Instead of banning laptops to cater to the least common denominator, why not just tell the kids not to surf the web during lectures? Have the TA sit in the back of the class or make a video recording from the back if it's a problem. It's hard not to imagine that the ones who surf the net on their laptops are the same ones who would be busy doo…

It's not just about distractions. Laptops also encourage a note taking style where you simply are transcribing every word that the lecturer says. This is a less effective way to learn material, as you can go on "auto pilot" where the words flow from your ears to your fingers without you really having to synthesize any information or really understand it. Studies[1] have shown that this happens even when students are warned against doing this.

Hand-writing notes, on the other hand, encourages you to process the information you are hearing and summarize it into your own words, improving understanding and memory of the information.

Anecdotally, my entire school (the business school at UT Austin) banned laptops in all classrooms, and I think it was hugely beneficial to my understanding of the materials. In other, non-business classes that allowed laptops, I tended to have to spend a lot longer re-reading my notes and textbooks before I felt like I really understood the information.

1: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/taking-notes-by-hand-...

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#106

Post by coding123 »

dkarl wrote: post #75
ptero wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People learn in different ways and my experience is completely different: note taking, on paper , was critical for me to learn. Whether it is a differential geometry lecture (in college) or a test planning meeting having written notes is very important for me -- it allows me to think through the topics again at leisure. The most important thing for me is to keep note taking at the "high secondary" importance level: n…

In school, I never got anything out of looking at my notes, but I had much better retention when I took notes. Now I take a lot of notes and actually use them, because I take down tons of information that isn't very interesting and can't be learned by connecting it to a conceptual framework but which I will definitely need later.

Same here, I would write down everything I heard and everything I understood, and I would draw arrows connecting concepts. A given lecture would probably fill up like 5 pages back and front in a notebook. I rarely actually read the notes - everything got retained simply by writing them in the first place.

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#107

Post by jdblair »

I prefer a notebook to a laptop in business meetings, but then I have to spend time afterward transcribing the notes so I can share them (something expected at my workplace).

I'm experimenting with using Evernote on a tablet computer along with a Bluetooth keyboard. So far this is working well - there's no laptop screen separating me from my colleagues, I can sketch diagrams and the notes are instantly available.

I have no disagreement that paper is better for learning. Computers were first starting to be available in lectures when I was an undergrad, and while I could type like mad I wouldn't retain as much information.

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#108

Post by malkia »

While I worked at Google, laptops @ meeting were pretty much the norm. A note-taker (in our case the oncall person, or build master) would open a Google Docs document, or continue from a long going one (well known to everyone) and start typing notes, agenda, action items. At the same time the rest of the team can join (especially useful, if meeting is happening in more than one room, with people working from home, remote offices, etc.). And everyone can correct, fix, assign, comment.

Now there is a time, when the manager would say - please close your laptops, there is something important, sensitive, etc needs to be discussed.

I've never seen more productive use of them. And the oncall person for the week can respond to alerts, msgs, etc. - the build master person can check updates. I mean technically you can do whatever you like, as long as your attention is not needed.

People can leave if they see that this part of the meeting no longer concern them, or any other reason.

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#109

Post by cholantesh »

cjsuk wrote: post #72
cholantesh wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do Laplace Transforms get very difficult? I'm taking a course right now that teaches Differential and Integral Calculus, followed by Differential Equations and Laplace Transforms. Laplace Transforms have, so far, been the least challenging portion of the course.

If you get them crammed into one hour then yes. In your own time they are quite easy. I required a bit of tutor support if I'm honest but if you can get over the basic calculus hill you will be fine. There's a lot more material out there to support you than there was in the mid-1990s! No having to fight for the last copy of referenced text in the university library either. I have literally never used anything I learn…

I found integration to be nothing short of brutal, personally. Laplace has been taught over 3 weeks and has been fairly pleasant - pure algebra.

I'm doing this course as part of the requirements for a degree in Eng. Technology, focusing on Software. It's common to all streams, but none of the subsequent courses Software students have to take will use this material. Damned if it isn't fun though.

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#110

Post by [deleted] »

cjsuk wrote: post #2

I will sit there in a meeting (or retrospectively in a university lecture) and regularly derive nothing of value at all from my notes, be they written or typed. It's the media that is wrong, not the note taking medium. You can't rewind a meeting or a lecture. You can't pause to think. You can't review the text in the middle. Everything is immediate, transient. If you lose the pace, then everything after that point is…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN