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

A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 243 posts

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#121

Post by linker3000 »

Symbiote wrote: post #119
danielhunt wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d like to see this too if you’re willing/happy to share

There are plenty of templates online, for example http://paper-prints.com/sheet/cornell_notes_A4 and (customizable) https://incompetech.com/graphpaper/cornelllined/ Searching also led to a few suppliers of pre-printed notebooks or paper with a similar grid.

Yes, but in the UK they are stupidly expensive - I thought about buying Cornell notebooks for the team (or having company ones made up), but soon changed my mind.

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#122

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #34

In lectures, note-taking at all should be avoided, most of the time. Most lectures cover material that is presented very clearly in accompanying materials, books or the internet. The idea I could do a better job than those authors while listening to the stuff for the first time is ludicrous. And at least for me it doesn't help recollection or focus to write notes while listening, and many students report they can tak…

This is why as an undergraduate, I rarely went to a course's lectures, I just read the readings and then came in for the exam. In many fields, lecturers at the undergraduate level are capable of giving you no more information than you could find in the standard textbooks and handbooks.

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#124

Post by hef19898 »

seventhtiger wrote: post #116

I tended to be in the top of the classes I was in and as far as I've seen my method was somewhat different. I also only take notes on paper, but more importantly, I throw all my notes out as soon as I finish writing them. For me studying is the act of writing the notes. The purpose of notes was never to read them later. That's why writing on paper is important to me. It's not about the qualities and convenience of th…

Sounds familiar. Never really worked for in school, work is different so. There I usually fill one college block every two months or so. Not that I ever read the notes again. But it kind of seems to get harder with age. Especially the "once written not forgotten" part...

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#125

Post by thom »

sumodm wrote: post #90

Here is what I discovered in my experience if this helps someone, completely anecdotal. Paper vs Computer 1. Paper: - Ability to spread things out, to take stock of a big project, simultaneous refer back, draw between two pages etc. - Faster draw diagrams etc, partially fixed, see article about thing student who used latex/inkscape to draw. - Faster to connect up different ideas. 2. Computer: - Search: When I need to…

This whole thread and only one mention of org-mode, what is the world coming to.

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#126

Post by onorton »

I would always take notes on paper as others have said as I think it helps with retention, at least for me.

Even then I would only take notes of equations to memorise them and things that the lecturers said that were even not explained properly or absent in the handouts/slides. At my university there were recordings of the lectures but I was too lazy/didn't want to waste my time looking up exactly what they said.

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#127

Post by linker3000 »

johnchristopher wrote: post #72
linker3000 wrote: post #36

I'm 53 and work in IT for a 'funky' learning/media company, ranking among the seniors in both age and position. I have a customised Cornell Notes* Word doc template, and I run off batches of 5-10 sheets to take to meetings and training sessions. My colleagues typically turn up with their tablets, surfaces, laptops, phones and 'multitask', however a few have started to adopt my method - it's been particularly useful f…

Love the Cornell notes. Would you share your template ?

Sure: https://github.com/linker3000/Cornell

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#128

Post by linker3000 »

danielhunt wrote: post #92
johnchristopher wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love the Cornell notes. Would you share your template ?

I’d like to see this too if you’re willing/happy to share

No prob: https://github.com/linker3000/Cornell

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#129

Post by 3jckd »

seventhtiger wrote: post #116

I tended to be in the top of the classes I was in and as far as I've seen my method was somewhat different. I also only take notes on paper, but more importantly, I throw all my notes out as soon as I finish writing them. For me studying is the act of writing the notes. The purpose of notes was never to read them later. That's why writing on paper is important to me. It's not about the qualities and convenience of th…

I can subscribe to this. Whenever I needed to learn or revise something, I would just write it down again, usually paraphrasing the original material.

While I wouldn't use that material directly ever again, I noticed that I would often paraphrase a paraphrase, so to speak, because I would remember some of the material.

Tangentially, this thread shows that people prefer different ways of taking (or not taking notes) usually due to a habit itselfc as opposed to superiority of one method over the other. It reminds me of Dvorak vs qwerty, while technically superior for typing in English, the cost of switching is not worth it for most people out there.

Post reply on HN