Some people take notes. Do you?

re: Some people take notes. Do you?

Rick Henderson — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 19:17:52 GMT

I've never been trained in using OneNote so don't know its benefits... it simply showed up one year in Microsoft Office! I am surprised that some of my students love using it and I believe it would be helpful if profs and teachers take some time to explain how to use it to study effectively. At this point, many university students in first year don't know that is important to take notes!

re: Some people take notes. Do you?

pradip — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 10:53:38 GMT

Nice article.Thanks for sharing about one note 2010.i really appreciated your article.

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re: Some people take notes. Do you?

BeanGraciela — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:46:04 GMT

I think it is very important to take notes because we learn more information while taking notes and can use the information correctly. But it is better to take notes writing down with your hand but not with the notebook.

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re: Some people take notes. Do you?

Jennifer Bost — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:08:14 GMT

Thanks for the great links to additional study tips. And I absolutley agree with your point, a student's success rests on his or her own shoulders. I overstepped my bounds with such a declarative statement as " will help improve your study habits". It would have been more responsible of me to say, "it may help improve...". Because, let's be honest, a tool will not improve your study habits unless you want it to. First, you have to know that there may be a better way of doing things than your current method. Then you have to learn that better way. That requires thought and analysis... a desire to change.

But I do think that OneNote could improve a student's study habits if they learned how to use it. More than paper note-taking. For example, if you're taking notes in a paper notebook, you might get frustrated flipping through pages of random notes (especially if you take sporadic, random and incomplete notes) for a particular topic that you want to study. But if you use a digital notebook, such as OneNote, you can easily type a familiar word in the search box and quickly navigate to the appropriate notes. Time saver! And once you start relying on these helpful features you may be more mindful of what you're writing when you take notes in the future. (Domino effect.) But, yes, it all depends on us and our commitment to practice good habits.

Thanks for starting the discussion and sharing helpful resources with us, ShelLuser on MSN. And thanks for supporting OneNote. It's changed my learning habits. Hopefully it helps others!

re: Some people take notes. Do you?

Jennifer Bost — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:05:55 GMT

Thanks for your comment and suggestion, Corey. I updated the link in the article, so that it takes you directly to the report.

re: Some people take notes. Do you?

ShelLuser — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 08:55:25 GMT

@Corey

Follow the link to the New York Times article, that has the correct link featured. That's most likely easier on you.

re: Some people take notes. Do you?

CAdams1984 — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:28:17 GMT

Great article. I wish I had OneNote 2010 when I was in College. One question, could you post the full link to the survey at National Survey of Student Engagement website. The URL just goes to the main website, but not the survey you are referencing.

re: Some people take notes. Do you?

ShelLuser — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 02:31:40 GMT

While what you wrote up there is absolutely true I don't fully agree with the end conclusion. But figured I'd still write it up because well... Blogs are also meant for some discussion, right ?

OneNote can get your back, no doubts there. I use it myself on a daily basis (for example to keep a collection of passwords I use on different websites; ideal!) and I concur that linking other Office documents with OneNote comes with many advantages.

Now; I think you're hinting that using OneNote by itself can help students to get their notes straightened out. That I don't agree with. Because in the end its not so much OneNote but the user or student who will still need to know /how/ to use it effectively.

If you can't cope with making reference notes on a paper for later use then OneNote cannot change that in my opinion. You will end up with better accessible information, sure, but if the user forgets to actually access the information while working on his project then the whole thing becomes somewhat meaningless again.

I say this because by default an Office application doesn't automatically open up linked notebooks (IMO a good thing) while you obviously do have easy access going both ways. Either you open your notebook to check the notes and fire up the linked document, OR you open your original document and tell the application to link you up with your notebook again.

SO in the end its still the user who needs to remind himself of actually utilizing all the notes he made and work them out. OneNote can help you out, but only if you let it.

Now, to try and turn my reaction into a little more besides "constructive criticism" (though I don't think I'm /that/ critical)..

I hope this isn't a problem but I'd like to share this URL which think is a great resource for issues like these:

www.dartmouth.edu/.../notes.html

They share some very good hints and tips on what to pay attention to when taking notes. They even address listening habbits and specific key words to pay attention to.

And, the other reason why I felt like sharing this: they even provide Word documents for download with handouts on these subjects (just like they have video's on the matter).

Although it is a dated website (serving Word 2003 - 2007 documents) the information they give you is still recent today.

Finally.. The Cornell note taking system ?

OneNote has your back (as you should expect by now). You can write notes, edit notes, and even recite them if you have a microphone hooked up. Text, pictures or audio; OneNote can grok it all!

That is versatility for you :-)