Week 3- Written versus Electronic Communication: Notetaking

Being surrounded by so much technology constantly has its downfalls. Not only can we not seem to ever truly “unplug” from social media, but it can be a distraction in class.

There are some classes where I prefer hand writing my notes like math or science. After all it is far from easy trying to type in the symbol for sigma, quickly drawing tables or writing formulas that have symbols not found on the average QWERTY keyboard. Other courses where it’s a lot of memorization to it, typing  notes doesn't make much sense because the more you write something yourself with no other medium but a pen and paper, the more it sticks in your head.

typing notes detaches you from actually being involved in the material being taught. Regardless of how skilled and fast you are at typing, most of your focus is on your screen and not the instructor. I find that it’s harder to actively engage in class when typing than if I'm writing notes myself. There are even some courses where I've personally found it beneficial to not write notes at all except for the occasional times where it seems like an important piece of information- normally because the instructor has only repeated it a million times in class.

Writing anything by hand takes a longer time and truly process it so the rare times where I have to write an assignment by hand, I tend to take more time in choosing my words because if it’s something like a three page essay then I want to spend a sufficient amount of time writing it but not so much that my hand is constantly cramping up on me because I was so verbose.

Take for instance my German language portfolio last year. When it was assigned, my class was told we would be turning in a printed copy. If I wanted to I could have just gone straight to the computer to type it but I wanted to hand write it so that I could focus on grammar and spelling rather than risk being distracted by Facebook or my email.

It’s so easy to be pulled astray by distractions on a computer, but if that phone or laptop isn't an option, there aren't as many possible distractions because you HAVE to focus on the instructor in order to make sure your notes are going to be beneficial to you and not confuse you even more.