Hi there,
my son bought a netbook yesterday (a Lenovo 100S) for his highschool needs. Now we try to populate it with all the essential programs and I wonder, what you would suggest as an allround note-taking programm. It should be light-weight and unobtrusive. I myself use ConnectedText and RightNote at the moment, but they seem too full of features for quick & dirty note taking in a school environment. I thought of ZIM: it's quite powerful with a clean and tidy interface.

Any suggestions?

Thanks a lot
Judith

OneNote is probably his best bet.

Onenote is really great for students

A video for MS Surface tablet, which is still pertinent to non pen-enabled PCs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gauy34-Ogw

Pierre

I never could warm up to OneNote, though I really wanted to. I find Evernote the best thing for taking unstructured notes while not having to worry about syncing and overwriting something important.

At the risk of being a Luddite... if I'm a classroom or lecture hall taking notes I'd want to concentrate on what's being said but still be able to get down enough in notes to remind me of the essential points of the lecture. I'd opt for the simplest single pane outliner to take notes down and then I could go back and edit or reorganize them to facilitate my later studying. For me that would be TkOutline.

I totally agree about your own suggestion, Zim is wonderfully simple at first but with some room to grow. It is open, both in terms of source code as in the many ways you can make use of it. And the file format is future proof, too. Zim does not get in the way: you can format things as if you were editing away in Word if you so choose but the underlying syntax is plain text and can be edited with any text editor.
I was about to write something about Zim on this forum anyway but you beat me to it. Great tool.

If it's for taking typed lecture notes, then I'd suggest WorkFlowy, in combination with a text expander app, to make typing faster.

You can zoom in on the lecture you're working on, then zoom out into the course schedule or whatever provides the bigger principle of organisation.

Then the notes will be accessible anywhere (mobile phone etc.), and WorkFlowy would also double as a task manager for getting other aspects of one's life organised.

Finally, all kinds of bells and whistles are available via free Stylish extensions and Chrome apps.

I do use WorkFlowy to take notes when I'm in meetings. But when I'm at a conference and I really want to pay attention to the content and take the fastest notes I can, I use an A5 size hard-backed paper notebook and a 0.5 black UB-205 Uni -Ball Vision Elite pen by Mitsubishi Pen Co. Ltd. ;)

re OneNote :
What is really impressive with OneNote is the you can record the full lecture and as you write notes during the lecture, it links the two, so you can instantly hear what the professor said, when you wrote it.
The video I linked to in my original post has many other tips and tricks

I wish I had this when I was at university !

Pierre Paul Landry

Hi there and thanks for all your suggestions.
I read that OneNote comes free with Windows 10, so this could be an option (although I always try to stay clear of MS products and cloud services and the like, but hey, he's a new generation and I'm a fossil, he may even like it.)
I still try to convince him of ZIM, but I fear it may be too "old-school" for him.

Cheers
Judith

OneNote is a great choice, though it doesn't exactly fit your qualification as being a lightweight resource.

I'd also like to offer a different solution: Scrivener

Not only can Scrivener be used for taking notes, your son could also use it for writing papers and capturing project-specific research. The Windows version isn't as polished as the Mac version, but it is pretty solid. I would create a new project for each course, then use the folder structure to organize the classes. The index card feature would be helpful for studying, building flash cards. It has an outline view that could be very handy.

Take a look at the features, here:

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php?platform=win

Steve Z.

jbaltsar wrote:

Hi there and thanks for all your suggestions.
I read that OneNote comes free with Windows 10, so this could be an
option (although I always try to stay clear of MS products and cloud
services and the like, but hey, he's a new generation and I'm a fossil,
he may even like it.)
I still try to convince him of ZIM, but I fear it may be too
"old-school" for him.

Cheers
Judith

I certainly understand and respect your reservations about MS products and cloud software in general. I've tried over the years to get pretty far away from them. However, for a high school student, there is a lot to manage and juggle, and anything that simplifies the process and reduces the likelihood of things getting lost/misplaced is probably a big help. (How I wish I had had a laptop and OneNote in high school/college!)

In addition, it's probably that he will be writing and submitting some assignments using other MS products, wouldn't you think? Most students write in either Word, Pages (Mac OS) or Google Docs. OneNote at least has an advantage for consistent formatting and data handling in and out of Word, Excel and other MS Office programs.

I try everything. I absolutely love a couple of the outliners we talk about around here. However, I have read several studies that show students retain far more information in the classroom if they use a notebook and pen. If necessary, scan it into OneNote later and it's searchable. There's something about the act of actually taking the notes by hand and not dealing with any tech during the lessons that allow for better learning (according to many).

If your son goes the software route, OneNote is hard to beat for his note-taking purposes. In fact, in my opinion, it's one of Microsoft's finest software products. Talking to other instructors, many students seem to prefer taking class notes with notepad (or similar) and then copy/paste, organize it at another time. I would also *highly* recommend DropBox using the local DB folder on the laptop for everything class-related and allow it to instant sync anytime it's connected via WiFi. Things don't get lost and it's always in the cloud if something were to happen locally.

Good luck to your son on his big step forward in high school!

While the praise about OneNote makes me think I should look at it again, I really didn't like the interface and feel of it. I only use the Mac version of Scrivener, but cannot fault it in any way. Your son might want to look at some tutorials online. In the DOS world, my entire life was in outliners (GrandView and MaxThink). If he can find a copy of Ecco Pro, I would recommend it.

On the topic of using a computer in class to take notes, some of my students end up on the Internet, much to their detriment. That alone pushes me to recommend a standalone notetaker rather than a web-based one. Please have him look at Scrivener (kudos to the earlier poster for the recommendation).

I'm inclined to agree with the contributors who have suggested that pen and paper is still the best way to take notes during a lecture. The process of writing them up on the computer afterwards is a valuable first stage of revision which will help to reinforce the lecture.

I don't particularly like Onenote, but as others have pointed out it is part of the Microsoft Office package and works nicely with Word etc. Scrivener is an interesting suggestion: I like it as a writing environment, but I think its lack of good search facilities would limit its use as a notes database. ConnectedText is an obvious (if heavyweight) option – if I had to choose from among the programs currently on the market that's the one I would go for. But my preferred option is still Idealist. It is a standalone free-form text database that uses a classic index card metaphor for individual entries. Originally developed by the computing division of the publishing company Blackwell in the 1990s, it still works well today (even in a 64-bit Windows 10 environment). It is easily the most reliable piece of software I have ever used (and I have been using version 3 since 1998); it indexes all entries and searches very rapidly; it also allows you alter the database structure on the fly. The main disadvantages are that it is plain text (which is not necessarily a disadvantage) and it is limited to the ANSI character set.

Lots of talk about OneNote in this thread.
I don't particularly "like" OneNote either, and still rather dislike it.
For the purposes of taking notes and having that act reinforce one's comprehension and retention, the pen/pencil and paper method would seem to have been established as the best notetaking method (according to recent research over the last few years, at any rate). I have used it thus and still do. I won't go into a tiresome repetition of the pros and cons of manual notetaking here.

However, notetaking is only a first step in taking one's learning into a knowledge repository, and for that there is a tool that, from my experience of an approx. 8-year experiment (can be had for approx. US$10 outlay) seems to blow the socks off anything else (including Scrivener, which I also use).

From a separate discussion thread on this forum: http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/6474/5
_________________________________________________________
I should perhaps point out here ... what I describe as my “21st century Zettelkasten” (Refer: Microsoft OneNote - how to make it your 21st century Zettelkasten PIM. - https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=31755.msg393032#msg393032
_________________________________________________________

I would suggest that the thing to do here is draw a clear distinction between:
(a) taking notes, and
(b) incorporating one's notes into a KM (Knowledge Management) system.

As a lecturer and IT techo from way back and as a concerned parent, I would have to say that, if one is NOT teaching one's children to use efficient and effective note-taking and knowledge capture methods, including what would objectively and experientially seem to currently be the most flexible note book and KM tool on the planet, then one is arguably failing in one's duty as a parent.
For this reason, I have taught my youngest (14½ y/o) daughter how to use MS OneNote and some of the other tools it integrates with in MS Office - including, for example, Publisher, Excel, and Word. (The ability to perform data analysis and documentation/communication of results and knowledge is increasingly important in this day and age.)
She has also learned how to capture information via Office Lens on her Windows 10 Nokia Lumia smartphone (given to her by her older brother, who is an IT network engineer).

Generally speaking, in advocating tools and methods for my children to use to assist their education, I try to avoid experimenting with their futures in my ignorance.
____________________________

Slartibartfarst wrote:

I would suggest that the thing to do here is draw a clear distinction
between:
(a) taking notes, and
(b) incorporating one's notes into a KM (Knowledge Management) system.

I'd agree with this as well. For taking the notes you'd want something that's quick and easy to power up, is distraction-free (so it gets out of the way), and it's also easy to structure the notes on the go (hence my suggestion of WorkFlowy).

Then it's a separate step to review, evaluate and export the data (or a selection of it) at a later time and incorporate it in a notes database system (Zim, CT, OneNote etc.) for further linking and annotation.

As for recording the lectures (a requirement I heard mentioned elsewhere), to me that seems to be overkill. The whole point of taking notes at a lecture is to extract some learning so one doesn't have to re-take (listen again to) the lecture.

Moreover, the lecturer is most likely regurgitating secondary literature already, so one might be better off reading the secondary or primary sources directly, rather than listening again to a tertiary interpretation.

Even when one is listening to a lecture by an original author, one might be better off reading the actual text than to listen to the recording again. Also, a different type of learning is involved when you read.

When I was a freshman, the personal computer was still about a decade away. 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/

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/

_________________________________

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.
=======================================================

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:
===============================================
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.
________________
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.
============================
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.
_________________________________________

Slartibartfarst wrote:

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/
_________________________________

Absolutely.
Teach the student to use pen/pencil and paper before teaching them to
use computer tools.

I agree with that and studies have shown its value. However, many lecturers are difficult
to understand and a recording can help untangle a nonlinear or otherwise difficult presentation.
I suggest and approach to capture the value of both methods, that is one of the recording pens
that enable one to take notes and also record the lecture while linking hand notes to
related parts of the recording.

The real key to note-taking is what is done subsequently with the notes taken. It takes work to
turn lectures into leaning; lucky are the few who have extremely good audio recall. But even then,
the information must be organized and digested. The key element is to have the raw material to
digest. Taking many notes in a class is only good if the notes are totally verbatim, or reflect
immediate cognitive processing, which is not always possible, or provide a basis for more
comprehensive expansion based upon recall triggered by the notes.

In sum, the best technique depends upon the person, the quality of the presentation and
the overall use and processing of the material.

In support of the posts by Donovan and others above, I too recommend pencil and paper as a first resort. My reasoning is based on two things: my own experience using pencil and paper for note-taking and long-form first-drafting over more than 50 years, and recent neurological research supporting the use of those tools in preference to keyboards as a way of engaging deep levels of the brain.

Here's a blog post by Joe Buhlig which contains references to some of that research: http://joebuhlig.com/the-science-and-experience-of-analog-writing/

The title of Joe's first reference more or less says it all: "A Learning Secret: Don’t Take Notes with a Laptop - Scientific American".

Hello everybody and thanks for all your replies.

I agree with most of what you said in one or the other way. Most important: I too think that students should first and foremost learn to work with pen and paper. I still believe that this is the most natural and effective way of primary data collection: simply jot it down, scribble, sketch, strike out ... ... Later on, and that's what I'm trying to tell my son, he should try to make sense of what he wrote, straighten, condense, prettify - and however he does ist, that's what learning is all about. I did it on hundreds of index cards (and I still have them somewhere in a box, after more than 20 years - try this with computer files), but if he wants to do it on his netbook it's ok for me. I still like the idea of ZIM, and I recently rediscovered Noteliner, a single-pane outliner; most of all I like their simplicity, they do what they are supposed to do, without much hassle. OneNote is probably an extremely powerful program and it#s a good thing to be able to move data from there to a presentation or to Word - but for me it would be too powerful. Too many options, too much distraction, too many technical gizmos - it makes me feel old :-)

In the end he has to decide himself, what will fit his preferred workflow, as long as it is a workFLOW and not an endless tinkering with technical possibilites.

Cheers

I have been using a Rocketbook Wave with Frixon pens for notetaking (http://getrocketbook.com I then use the Rocketbook app to upload the notes to either Evernote or Onenote so that they are searchable. It is a nice combination of pen and paper with digital searching.

jbaltsar wrote in part:

. . . I did it on hundreds of index cards (and I still
have them somewhere in a box, after more than 20 years - try this with
computer files)

That's precisely what I've done with Idealist. My main database currently contains just short of 23,000 virtual index cards some of which date back to the mid 1990s. But unlike a box (or more probably several dozen boxes) of physical cards, this one is fully indexed and instantly searchable.

Ahh, Idealist! I stumbled upon this gem back in '99 or so. Came for free on a magazine CD, and I still have got some data in there, which I work on occasionally. Still rock solid, even under Win7/64. If only they hadn't stopped development - it would be my one and only infomanager.