Taking notes on printed slides vs tablet or laptop

[AORiverContra]

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My routine in undergrad for bio-related classes was to print out lecture slides and write on top of them. But for med school I am curious about the different tablets that are available for note taking. The question is does using a tablet compare to physical note taking in terms of comfort/ precision? What tablet/stylus/app combinations do you recommend?

 

[songl4a]

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[cbrons]

My routine in undergrad for bio-related classes was to print out lecture slides and write on top of them. But for med school I am curious about the different tablets that are available for note taking. The question is does using a tablet compare to physical note taking in terms of comfort/ precision? What tablet/stylus/app combinations do you recommend?

It compares in that the lecture slides for med school are worthless and not even worth printing out let alone "taking notes on."

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[ortnakas]

It compares in that the lecture slides for med school are worthless and not even worth printing out let alone "taking notes on."

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Not to mention that 1) you'd spend a ridiculous amount of money printing everything if you have a lecture based curriculum and 2) you're often lucky if slides are actually posted far enough in advance to print them.

 

[theSmurfette]

I printed my slides, 6 to a page, for most of my first 2 years. The last 6 months of 2nd year I started typing up the slides while in class (yes, I went to class every day) from the ppts just to cut down on the paper I was using. Our exams were from the slides given and 90% of our ppts were posted by the night before.

I have a brother laser printer and I've been using the same toner cartridges for almost a year now. I did try to take notes with my iPad using notability but wasn't fast enough to get everything on them before the professor moved on. So I went back to printing.


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[mbeus]

It completely depends on your learning style. I am old-fashioned and much prefer having physical notes. My school prints them for us, so cost wasn't an issue. But I would say at least half my class uses only tablets/laptops for notes.

 

[LnSin]

I'm still in UG, but the surface book is the best of both worlds here🙂

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[MagentaKarma]

Following this thread. I like paper and pencil note taking. I'm kind of worried because the school I will go to will provide "free" ipads and although I own an iPhone and have used iPads, I have never taken notes via a stylus or keyboard

 

[Azete]

Surface Pro 4 seems expensive, but I would have paid double the price if I needed to. Printed slides obviously works (the last ~two decades of med school graduates proves this), but tablet note taking is far superior (and much less cumbersome) if you have a good product and you're using it optimally.

 

[Azete]

Following this thread. I like paper and pencil note taking. I'm kind of worried because the school I will go to will provide "free" ipads and although I own an iPhone and have used iPads, I have never taken notes via a stylus or keyboard

The new iPads with the bluetooth stylus should be fine, but bluetooth is truly the only technology that is currently comparable to pen & paper accuracy.

 

[LnSin]

The new iPads with the bluetooth stylus should be fine, but bluetooth is truly the only technology that is currently comparable to pen & paper accuracy.

iPad so expensive though... Surface has the same functionality for cheaper, and the stylus is included.

Imho, not apple bashing.

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[ConfusedChemist]

I still go with typing in comments on the lecture slides, or adding text boxes beside the slides. It's the simplest method to convert to printouts, summaries, flashcard apps, etc. I also like the ability to bold/highlight/color code everything which makes large chunks of text easy to follow, and helps me remember easier because of the color system I use.

Then, I just have one set of notes to write/re-write pathways or lists from as studying methods, because handwriting helps me with retention. But I never have to worry about illegible writing in my 'good' notes.

 

[Azete]

iPad so expensive though... Surface has the same functionality for cheaper, and the stylus is included.

Imho, not apple bashing.

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I prefer Surface but I'm not sure what you're basing iPad being more expensive off of, though. Even base SP4 is $900 vs $800 for 12.9 iPad Pro, but honestly any med student is going to need at least the 8GB/i5 SP4 to be viable for med school and that's $1300.

I think the SP4 is well worth the price difference, though.

 

[MagentaKarma]

I guess I don't have to worry because the iPad is covered in my "tuition"