Note-taking has recently become a topic of intellectual interest. Experiments have been conducted and conferences have been held to determine how modern technology has changed the face of note-taking and how this is affecting one’s ability to effectively take in and regurgitate information. The benefits of traditional longhand note-taking versus laptop note-taking have been widely discussed, but an alternative medium like the smartpen could be the answer to making hand-written notes digital for purposes of sustainability and shareability.
Taking notes is an important mode of learning. Each individual person has their own methodology for note-taking in a manner that best facilitates their learning style. Ann Blair, a professor of history at Harvard is quoted in “Note-Taking’s Past, Deciphered Today” asking, “What is reading, after all? Even if you look introspectively, it’s hard to really know what you’re taking away at any given time. But notes give us hope of getting close to an intellectual process” (Schuessler). This stresses the importance of note-taking and why we should be working toward discovering the most effective note-taking mediums.
While taking notes on a laptop allows for a student to record more information at a quicker pace, professors express concerns over the distractions that laptops offer. In the article “The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard” Mueller and Oppenheimer state, “Empirical research tends to support the professors’ view, finding that students using laptops are not on task during lectures, show decreased academic performance, and are actually less satisfied with their education than their peers who do not use laptops in class” (Mueller/Oppenheimer 1).
Because most students today are far more computer literate than previous generations, laptop note-taking allows them to record information quickly enough that their notes are verbatim to the lectures they are hearing. Mueller and Oppenheimer conducted three experiments, which are further explained in the previously linked article, to investigate how academic performance is affected by laptop versus longhand note-taking. The first experiment simply compared longhand and laptop notes without any instruction. Aiming to replicate these findings, the second experiment attempted to determine if instructional intervention not to record verbatim notes on laptops had an effect on performance. The third experiment tested whether students performed better after studying longhand notes versus laptop notes.
All of these experiments ended with similar results. Those taking longhand notes recorded far fewer words than those using laptops and the lack of verbatim notes when using longhand resulted in superior performance in each experiment. Even when instructed not to take verbatim notes in the second experiment, it was completely ineffective in reducing verbatim content, once again leading to results proving superior academic performance after longhand note-taking. Mueller and Oppenheimer take these results into consideration, concluding, “For that reason, laptop use in classrooms should be viewed with a healthy dose of caution; despite their growing popularity, laptops may be doing more harm in classrooms than good” (Mueller/Oppenheimer 8).
Schuessler’s article focuses on a conference called “Take Note” which was intended to explore the history and future of the book. An attendee of the conference, Peter Burke, addresses the comparison of enthusiastic note-takers to “compulsive hoarders” saying, “But I distrusted the students who took lots of notes as much as the students who didn't take any” (Schuessler). This is a similar concern for professors who are beginning to ban the use of laptops in their classrooms due to the decreasing academic performance that results from verbatim note-taking on laptops.
In addition, Schuessler includes that scholars at “Take Note” discussed the benefits of digital note-taking because it gives the ability to put notes in a more lasting form than paper and allows for easier sharing. David Weinberger, a Harvard technologist who attended the conference, is quoted in Schuessler’s article as saying, “Private note-taking seems selfish to me. Make it all public, using standards. Big clouds of notes!” (Schuessler).
While there is adequate defense for both longhand and laptop note-taking, neither of these articles sought a medium that would encompass the benefits of both. Several smartpens have been created in recent years, which operate using wi-fi, allowing students to hand-write notes which are directly uploaded to a digital format. These pens can also simultaneously record audio so that students can go back and listen to lectures again and record any additional information they may not have had time to write down. In her article “Hands-On With Livescribe’s Sky Wi-Fi Smartpen,” Christina Bonnington discusses her personal experience using the smartpen and how the convenient technology allows for making hand-written notes digital.
Technologies like the Sky Smartpen are still new mediums for note-taking and their affect on academic performance has yet to be fully tested. However, smartpens do provide a medium that allows for taking longhand notes that can be converted to a digital format, eliminating issues of laptop note-taking like verbatim content.
Bonnington, Christina. “Hands-On With Livescribe’s Sky Wi-Fi Smartpen.” Wired.com. 29
October 2012. Web.
Mueller, Pam A. and Daniel M. Oppenheimer. “The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard:
Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking.” Psychological Science. 23 April
2014. Web.
Schuessler, Jennifer. “Note-Taking’s Past, Deciphered Today.” International New York Times. 6
November 2012. Web.
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