Note-taking is a part of every student life. Working professionals, entrepreneurs and creative individuals also take notes every now and then. There are numerous sources of information and inspiration in today’s world. All you need is a way to record all of them in an efficient manner. What really matters is the actual thought process while taking notes. As digital advancements are in a full swing, digital note-taking has become the most preferable method to take notes.
To know the benefits of taking digital notes, you need to know what the 4 S’s of note-taking are:
- Support : It’s beneficial if the digital note-taking supports students with their learning process.
- Search : It should allow them to search for required information.
- Save : All the information should be saved in not just one but multiple locations.
- Share: Sharing it for approval with teachers or sharing it with peers makes it a complete process.
Here are the four strategies to enhance a student’s thought process in note-taking:
Use Note-taking tools and methods
Digital note-taking itself means using technology to take notes. There are many apps and methods to take notes. One such app is Noteshelf. It not only eases the process of jotting notes but also improves the quality of learning. The learning process varies from student to student. It’s important to choose a note-taking method too. Digital note-taking apps like Noteshelf have templates available for various note-taking methods. Templates of Cornell notes, Outline notes etc are available. Strategizing which one is best for you is half the note-taking process.
To know more about each of the methods – Outline method, Cornell method, Sketchnotes and Mindmaps, read the earlier articles.
Digital Organisation of notes
Organising notes is a critical skill for many students both for digital and paper notes. They seek help from teachers and parents to get organised. Everything is digital in today’s world. Students need to develop their own system to organize their notes. In apps like Noteshelf, organising is an easy process. There are shelves where students can arrange their notes, different notebooks for different subjects. Students can tag notes which enables an easy search process.
Concept Mapping by students
Digital note-taking is not a hand to ipad process, it’s all in the mind. One powerful component is concept mapping. Students understand the connection between topics, build deeper understandings and increase their conceptual learning skills. You are successful if you can look at the bigger picture from the disconnected pieces of information.
Use more pictures and colors
The impact pictures, diagrams and other graphics create on a student’s mind is huge. In regular paper notes, due to a restricted time constraint we do not include them. But digital notes make our job easy now. You can add multimedia in the notes, copy it from the web or any other source. Use of highlighters for headings or important points helps you differentiate sections or categories better. Digital notes also have highlighters which makes it easily readable.
Note-taking is a mind game altogether. With apps like Noteshelf, you will be successful with ease. If you haven’t used your critical thinking skills yet, do use a mind approach to take notes. It makes learning so much easier.
Happy thoughtful note-taking!
