Laptop for Lecture?

[Veritas23]

On the tours I attended during my interview days at NECO, SUNY, and PCO there were quite a few (enough to be very noticeable) students that were using laptops in lecture - be it a note-taking device or reference for looking at power-points as they are presented by the professor (and not for Facebook or Twitter...).

How much do any of you think this is a benefit to your learning in Optometry school? I am approaching my first year at PCO in August and have always been a very technology-savvy kind of guy, but never used a laptop to take notes/reference in Undergraduate study.

My main question is for those of you who are currently attending Opto-School, and those of you who have recently graduated, what type of note-taking methods did you use and do you think having a laptop was more of a help than a distraction/hindrance to your learning?

My thinking has been that, from what I have heard on my tours, they will provide you with all of the lecture outlines/powerpoints before/slightly after the lecture itself (in electronic form), eliminating the need to frantically copy down notes like I have all throughout undergrad. Printing out all of these outlines would assuredly be time-consuming and annoying as well. While I understand there is a definite place for taking notes with pen/paper, such as drawing diagrams/etc, I was wondering if people had greater success using laptops or other electronic devices to aid their learning.

Any personal experiences or suggestions would be highly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

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[Taven7755]

Hello truth23, I will try to tell you my own experiences. I am a 2nd year at Nova, and I use my laptop for probably 90% of my studying....

It wasn't always this way. When I started, printing here at Nova was free, and we used that to print off hard copy for almost every class. This was stopped last year, and I think that my grades have improved because of it. The process now is simple: Most profs will give notes in either word or PDF, and I use a converter program (such as Xchange) to use them as note templates. Xchange allows me to take notes on the PDF itself, highlight, etc, and to use this later to study. I write questions on it, and am able to put MUCH more onto that PDF from the profs mouth than I am in writing it by hand. It is also much more organized and easier to create outlines from.

I will say that there are a few of my classes, mainly disease related, in which I still print off the hard copy. The pictures are good to look at on the laptop, but the very dense text is easier to purse through my hand. With this said, I have every review given on my laptops' sound recorder, make my own mp3 notes and send them to others in the class, etc. This allows me much more reach and organization than any hard copy method possibly could. When boards come, I will have it all in the same place, not in stacks of papers in a closet somewhere....hope this helps!

 

[Commando303]

On the tours I attended during my interview days at NECO, SUNY, and PCO there were quite a few (enough to be very noticeable) students that were using laptops in lecture - be it a note-taking device or reference for looking at power-points as they are presented by the professor (and not for Facebook or Twitter...).

How much do any of you think this is a benefit to your learning in Optometry school? I am approaching my first year at PCO in August and have always been a very technology-savvy kind of guy, but never used a laptop to take notes/reference in Undergraduate study.

My main question is for those of you who are currently attending Opto-School, and those of you who have recently graduated, what type of note-taking methods did you use and do you think having a laptop was more of a help than a distraction/hindrance to your learning?

My thinking has been that, from what I have heard on my tours, they will provide you with all of the lecture outlines/powerpoints before/slightly after the lecture itself (in electronic form), eliminating the need to frantically copy down notes like I have all throughout undergrad. Printing out all of these outlines would assuredly be time-consuming and annoying as well. While I understand there is a definite place for taking notes with pen/paper, such as drawing diagrams/etc, I was wondering if people had greater success using laptops or other electronic devices to aid their learning.

Any personal experiences or suggestions would be highly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

I'm not shooting down your question, but my response to it is the suggestion you figure it out for yourself, as you begin your education. Different people learn very differently: some never miss a lecture, others show up almost only for examinations — a random member of either of these parties would be as prone to success or failure as that of the other.

(By the way, often, a person who has a laptop open during lecture, will be reviewing notes for a different class — 😎.)