Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Take Notes In the Modern Classroom? 364
Krau Ming writes "After about eight years spent in research, I've made the decision to go back to school — medical school. When I last spent the bulk of my days sitting in lectures, I took notes with paper, and if the professor wasn't technologically impaired, he/she would have posted powerpoint slides as a PDF online for us to print and make our notes on. Since it has been so long, I am looking for some options other than the ol' pen and paper. Is there an effective way of taking notes with a laptop? What about tablet options? Are there note-taking programs that can handle a variety of file types (eg: electronic textbooks, powerpoint slides, PDFs)? Or should I just sleep in and get the lectures posted online and delay learning the course material until the exam (kidding)?"
8 years ago... (Score:5, Funny)
Such a long time, did they already have pen and paper?
I can't remember, so much has changed.
With force? =) (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me a story my dad told me... (Score:5, Funny)
So apparently the technology of the time of personal tape recorders. Not sure if this was his undergrad or law school, but I guess a lot of students rather than attending a long lecure would come in, drop off a tape recorder, press record, and then leave. Apparerently it got so bad that then one day he was late for class or something, and when he got there, the entire classroom was just a bunch of tape recorders recording, and at the front (I can only assume in protest) the prof had brought his own taped lecture and was simply playing it out of his own device!
A sort of analog information transfer...
Re:Pen and paper is the best (Score:3, Funny)
Plus it allows you to practice crappy physician handwriting.
Re:Pen and paper is the best (Score:4, Funny)
Re:8 years ago... (Score:2, Funny)
My grandpa used to tell me there was once a time when the most you could hope was for the professor to post a pdf. But I always thought he was joking. Guess he was telling the truth after all.
To paraphrase Mitch Hedberg (Score:5, Funny)
I bought a hundred-dollar pen because I always lose pens and I was sick of not caring.
Go high-tech (Score:5, Funny)
This is a bit high-tech, but I've had good results with it.
You're going to need a cylinder of compressed graphite, roughly .5mm in diameter and 5cm in length. Encapsulate it in some ablative material (preferably a renewable organic material) for better grip and structural integrity.
Use this implement to store data on a flexible two-dimensional lattice. The graphite will slowly be worn down as it is deposited on the surface - you will need to continually ablate more of the cover.
Data removal is handled either by disposing of the lattice itself (for bulk erase), or by use of a specialized tool (often attached to one end of the data write implement) for small deletes - although I will note that, after sufficient rewrite cycles, data may be unreadable.
This offers many advantages over traditional computer-based storage. It is far lower-power, functioning off a few milliwatts of energy. It allows for highly flexible unstructured data storage (sort of like NoSQL), and can be improved rapidly by agile development, as no data standards are enforced. I often use a system of my own design to encrypt data by use of an alternative character set (the Unicode committee has, unfortunately, declined to add it to the standard). It also allows more rapid and accurate entry of non-textual or rich-text data.
The only drawbacks are a rather inefficient system for video storage, and it can become rather bulky (while not as dense as the old computer systems, they often have similar or even higher mass). But those are rather minor drawbacks given all the advantages.
Re:Reminds me a story my dad told me... (Score:5, Funny)
Have you considered the possibility that your dad is Val Kilmer?
Re:Stick With What Works (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Stick With What Works (Score:4, Funny)
No offense but maybe your brain just fails to multitask.
No offense, but maybe you're a narcissistic, egotistical ignoramus who thinks he's some kind of ubermensch because he can walk and chew gum at the same time.
No offense.