Best program for lecture notes

Posted by Slartibartfarst
Jun 6, 2016 at 03:53 AM

Jeffery wrote:
>...I always used Cornell Note Paper regardless of the topic. It wasn’t called that specifically, though. It was in spiral-bound
>notebooks. One can make one’s own Cornell paper here: https://incompetech.com/graphpaper/cornelllined/
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Absolutely.
Teach the student to use pen/pencil and paper before teaching them to use computer tools.
Firstly: Using pen/pencil on paper to get the knowledge into one’s head as “learning”, and the Cornell note-taking template is as good as any a structured approach for doing that - it may also help to encourage the mind to think critically as the notes are being taken, and it is a useful structure for revision.

Secondly: Subsequently getting that documentation into the knowledge-base subsequently.

I have long been interested in the potential for computer-based learning tools, and so called “programmed learning” tools, starting with the superb pioneering work done by CDC (Control Data Corporation) in the shape of their “Plato” system. As an educator/lecturer, I was blown away by my initial experiences of that system, which were:
(a) “A Psychological Approach to Selling”, a superb training course which was well ahead of its time, being based on an analytical transaction analysis model between 3 personality types (Dominant-Detached-Dependent), predating what is today referred to as transaction analysis between 3 ego states (Parent-Adult-Child ) with options:
- I’m OK, You’re OK;
- I’m OK, You’re NOT OK;
- I’m NOT OK, You’re OK.

(b) “An introduction to Finite Element Analysis”, which gave an overview of the theory and presented computational methods and approaches to FE mesh analysis (using computers).

I mention these because they were highly successful educational delivery tools in complex subjects, and thus no mean achievements. It was those and similar experiences that got me interested in not just data capture and the capture of information generally, but KM (Knowledge Management) generally - including knowledge capture and the ability to interrelate this info/knowledge in one’s mind to develop potentially new understandings and knowledge that could be communicated to others (e.g., in lectures or other teaching environments).

So when I read that people want to (say) capture/record a lecture and/or lecture notes into a computerised notebook tool of some sort - e.g., as I might perhaps want to capture the different data types (including various forms of text, images, OCR, audio, audio-video) into my “21st-Century Zettelkasten PIM” - I am always very interested.
However, I am acutely aware that the aforementioned capture/recording may in fact have little or nothing to do with actual learning.

The thing is that LEARNING is a process that goes on between the ears.
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The introduction of ubiquitous new computer technology now enables this capture/recording, making information/knowledge potentially more accessible (in theory at least, if not yet in practice). But this potential may not be realised if the student is so engaged in the process of capture/recording that he/she fails to engage his/her full cognitive surplus in the act of learning itself and whilst the learning opportunity is in progress.
THERE IS A WARNING HERE: I sometimes wonder whether the first (the capture/recording) is not in reality a subconscious diversionary attempt to avoid the second - i.e., engaging in doing anything that might actually be productive, such as, for example, engaging in the mental processes associated with and necessary for learning to come about.

Having said that, here’s a bit of a digression or tangential point:
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This potential tendency for avoidance of useful/productive work (for the purposes in hand) seems to be a very human potential, and I have seen it manifested by many people, including students, computer techos, tourists and business managers.

For example:
(a) I have seen highly intelligent database system developers become so partisan about their preferred methodologies that they become totally unproductive - work comes to a standstill - whilst they earnestly debate the merits of their preferred methodologies, ad infinitum. In this state, the “rightness” of one’s particular bias seems to become all-consumingly important to one’s sense of self. - this is Ahamkara (https://googledrive.com/host/0B9rIby-RfgLNdkRYbm8xV1pkeW8/Ahamkara.htm).
As a consultant I have witnessed this kind of bonkers behaviour effectively defeat (fail) two very large IT projects, and expedite the winding-up of an entire computer services company.

(b) I have noticed the tendency of many Japanese tourists to observe natural beauty - e.g., (say) the beauty of a moving sunset - not through their eyes and senses but apparently solely through their camera lenses, almost as though they were denying themselves of the opportunity to do what they had presumably come for - i.e., to experience and meditate at first hand and with their own senses the instances of natural beauty in far off lands (as a well-known travel writer commented, someone Theroux, I think it was). Travel may “broaden the mind”, as they say, but turning oneself into a de fecto dedicated photographer of the whole event might not actually achieve much for the mind. There is a lot to be said for being still and observing/meditating on Nature’s wonders, as the Vedic philosophers suggested some 3,000 years ago.

(c) I have observed countless strategic planning sessions where one could predict the outcome as failure, because the participants were engaging in diversionary behaviours to avoid engaging in doing anything pragmatic/productive. This was such a common occurrence that one gifted consultant put it to verse, not a few years ago:

A Corporate Prayer.
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Bless us Lord, and help us live,
Like every good executive,
A life more selflessly inclined
To what is in out GM’s mind;
And may it be Thy wish, and his,
To tell us what his thinking is,
The way it was when we began,
Before we had the Corporate Plan.

Help thy servants on the Board
Understand his words, O Lord,
Since he changed his erstwhile manners,
And joined the Long Range Corporate Planners;
And if he needs must bore the pants off
All of us with Igor Ansoff,
Help us understand the charts -
Even the synergetic parts.

Help us share his new perspectives,
That Strategies are not Objectives;
And, through Thy goodness, cross the ditch,
To know more clearly which is which;
And, by Thy mercy which begat us,
Show us why it really matters,
In the name of Him who knows
All about Scenarios.

Grant us, Father, if you please,
Purer methodologies;
And tempt us not towards decisions
Without a further few revisions,
At interminable lengths,
Of our Weaknesses and Strengths.
Let need for action not deflect us
From codifying all our Vectors.

Grant, in answer to our prayers,
Thicker Strategies than theirs,
Who, in their blind unwisdom chase
Profits in the market place,
Without a contemplative look
At what is in the Corporate Book.
Let their successes not distract us
From listing our External Factors.

Help us keep our Corporate eyes on
Some appropriate horizon,
Far from all the symptomatic
Signs of anything pragmatic;
Defend us, always, through our prayers,
From acting like entrepreneurs,
And from the uninformed who said
That, in the longer-term we’re dead.
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I think the prayer was published in a business and management magazine in the 1980s. The magazine name, date and author references have been lost. It might have been the Harvard Business Review, but I am not sure.
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