Pen Mightier Than Keyboard

[OregonJim]

 

Business writing is the typical kind of cursive your parents or grandparents were probably taught years ago. One popular variant is the Palmer method, but I prefer the method by E.C Mills. This kind of writing is a lot of fun but its not designed to be written using your fingers alone. It requires you to put your shoulder into it, and for that you need a table.

 

In grade school, we had proper desks. In high school, and through college, for lectures, we had these:

 

IMHO, any venue that provides only folding chairs and expects learning to take place, is not serious about learning.

[azbobcat]

As a student, during my undergrad, I noticed around 50/50 pen to laptops. Now that I'm in postgrad, almost everyone around me writes. It's so nice to actually see that. And it's also kind of hard to type in the field.

Well Now I'm really going to date myself: When I did my M.Sc. and Ph.D. I would TAPE the lecture *and* take notes, any diagrams,etc., and when I would get home in a separate notebook *listen* to the tape, and combine my in-class notes with additional information I missed during the lecture. Indeed there was a period I was out sick, but I was always "present" in the class as someone would tape the lecture for me. Oh yeah, all my notes were made in clear CURSIVE, and often involved using 3-4 different colored inks.

[inkstainedruth]

When I was in college, computers were not so ubiquitous. I only knew one person who had a personal computer (and he was a freshman when I was a senior, and I think he might have been a computer engineering major). Laptops? Pretty much non-existent, AFAIK.
While the bulk of my classes didn't involve taking notes (I was an art major) I did have a typewriter for writing papers for my non-major core classes. As for the classes where I did take notes? I had lots of little sketches of the pieces being discussed in my art history class. I can't imagine trying to do that on a laptop (having to look up the pieces under discussion, download and save the images, and *then* be caught up before the professor had gone on to the next piece (especially since she was very big on architecture, and all those little diagrams of where the piers were laid out in cathedral X vs. cathedral Y). Instead? I had a little 1" sketch in the corner of the page next to the notes about such and such painting or sculpture -- mostly just outlines, but enough detail to (mostly) recognize the piece if I saw the slide again in the small group review (at which I'd put an asterisk next to the sketch because I knew that one might be on an exam).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[corgicoupe]

Hah! When I was an undergraduate in materials science, the professor came to class with a box of colored chalk and proceeded to draw a three-dimensional figure of a ternary phase diagram, and then make planar cuts through the solid figure to explain what happened as the molten alloy cooled. No way that those notes could have been captured on a laptop. Of course there was no such creature in the early 1960s.

[NinthSphere]

Hah! When I was an undergraduate in materials science, the professor came to class with a box of colored chalk and proceeded to draw a three-dimensional figure of a ternary phase diagram, and then make planar cuts through the solid figure to explain what happened as the molten alloy cooled. No way that those notes could have been captured on a laptop. Of course there was no such creature in the early 1960s.

 

That's what your webcam is for. Wait until the drawing finished, run to the board, then take snapshots or video of the diagrams. Just ignore the glares you get doing so.

[corgicoupe]

Ah, but understanding only came with drawing in your notebook as he drew on the slate blackboard. Yes, he insisted on real slate.

[thesmellofdustafterrain]

I've enjoyed reading this thread. It gives me a lot of things to think about.

 

My experience is a little bit different regarding note taking in university. Being dyslexic, I have a lot of trouble writing (although I'm trying hard to improve that as an adult). It's slow and takes intense concentration to keep it legible. For that reason, I found I missed a lot of vital information in lectures when I was taking notes by hand. It's like writing by hand takes a very different part of my brain than listening and the two are noncompatible. I never read my notes anyway, so I stopped taking notes and went back to being an A+ student.

 

The next term, my friend with cerebral palsy was in several of the same classes as me and he asked me to take notes for him (the university offered a fund to pay for the expense). So I started bringing my laptop to class and sat in the back of the room so not to disturb the other students. I was the only one who brought a computer to class and I deliberately disabled wi-fi to prevent myself from being distracted. It was amazing how easy it was to take notes on the computer. I could keep my listening brain on full and absorb the information from the instructor while typing. Each evening I would spellcheck my notes and email them to my friend. This was like the studying thing that people always talked about and it increased my grades yet again.

 

But I have something of a defective brain, so I'm probably the outlier in this story.

 

For me, writing by hand goes very well with creative tasks. Things like writing a first draft of an essay or article. Also for planning, brainstorming, and mind dumps where we set the timer and just write anything so long as we keep writing. Mind dumps are great for unclogging writers' block.