Q2 Technology Applications & Tools for Note Taking

3. My Digital Life

This page provides some tips and tools to address your Myers-Briggs learning styles...

Note taking: Introvert & Sensing,
Organizers: Introvert, Perceiving & Sensing.

Important: Check with your teacher before downloading or installing apps and extensions.

Note Taking

Note taking is a very important skill to have, whether you are listening to a lecture in your classroom, watching an instructional video, or attending a class virtually online. Taking notes can help you remember and also focus on the information. You can take notes by handwriting them with paper and pencil/pen, or typing or entering them into a document using a digital device (computer or mobile device).

Advantages of using a computing device include:

easily editing them
accessing them from any other digital device
sharing them with others.

Some digital features that help make note taking effective

highlighting or bolding important points
being able to retrieve and organize them
adding links to media such as videos, images, and special resources online

Research shows that note taking in any form stimulates your brain and helps the information go from short-term to longer-term memory.

Below are some of the popular and user friendly apps:

Google Keep & Microsoft OneNote

Google Keep: Android, iOS, and Google Keep looks like a basic sticky note taking app, but there's a “Copy to Google Doc” feature, which turns any note into an editable Google Doc where you can add images, comments, and links to files. Google Keep's most useful feature is audio transcription. When you record your thoughts with Keep’s audio recorder in its mobile apps, Google transcribes the text and records the audio.

Use these step-by-step Google Keep Instructions on how to download and use Keep to take notes. This How to use Google Keep Tutorial YouTube Video has step=by=step instructions.

Microsoft OneNote: is part of the Microsoft Office Suite and is designed around notebooks and note sections. It feels just like a paper note as you can begin keyboarding anywhere in the note. You can add images and file attachments, notes, highlighting, audio and sketches.

This video, Microsoft OneNote for Windows 10 Tutorial YouTube, for 2022 will assist you in learning all the in and outs of OneNote. If you have an older version, check YouTube for tutorials.

Apple Notes: free with macOS/iOS devices, and it does a great job of letting you type or take notes by hand. Capture quick thoughts, save longer notes filled with checklists, images, web links, scanned documents, handwritten notes, or sketches. The drawing features are solid, making it easy to add sketches and illustrations to your notes. When used with iCloud, it's easy to keep all your devices in sync, so you’ll always have your notes with you.

This video, Why Apple Notes may be the Best note Taking App YouTube (16:46 mins), compares the features of Google Keep, Microsoft Onenote and Apple Notes.

Microsoft OneNote video

Top Tips for Note taking

Consider your Personality Learning Style. Some of the tools suggested may not be your best way of learning, organizing and remembering important ideas.

It should be a useful tool and not a distraction or be cumbersome. If you find yourself getting distracted switch the type of note taking you are using to a different type. Remember these note taking tools are only as good as what you do with them after you have taken them.

Reviewing notes tips:

Within the first 24 hours
A small portion of them everyday
Have your notes with you as you do other readings or research

Consider using an organizer such as Cornell Notes.	Divide your paper into three sections: notes, cues, and summary. Refer to this Cornell Notes for Middle School YouTube (54 mins) video.
Mind maps are great way of taking notes for specific types of subjects.	Use the mind map to get a handle on how certain topics relate, or to go in-depth with one particular idea. Mind Maps YouTube (2 mins) video..
Flow notes	Jot down topics, draw arrows, make little doodles and diagrams and graphs. Video tutorial (2:16)
Take notes on Slides (using Google Slides, PowerPoint slides)	Download presentations by your teacher. You can then add notes, edit them, highlight important points, and/or print them out.
Bullet Journaling	Use a blank piece of paper and jot down your notes, draw images, use arrows to connect ideas.

Credits: How to Take Better Notes

Organizers

Students with good organization skills have the ability to create and maintain ways to keep track of information or materials. A graphic organizer is an aide to move ideas and information from short-term memory into long-term memory. A graphic organizer is:

a visual or graphic display organizes ideas and demonstrates relationships between different information and concepts
sometimes referred to as knowledge maps, concept maps, story maps, cognitive organizers, advanced organizers, or concept diagrams.

See some examples of: "15 Graphic Organizers and How They Help Visualize Ideas"

Some digital graphic organizer tool suggestions:

1. Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint
2. Canva
3. You may have other digital tools suggested by your teacher or already know about.

Graphic Organizer Tools

You can watch a Mind Map Tutorial with Google Slideshow YouTube (4:32) and/or make a copy of this Google Slideshow Brainstorm Document;

Visual Learning Resources

Refer to 2.Q1 Visual Learning-Fire Rescue

Presentation YouTube (4:48)

Canva has free online graphic organizer templates for students to use. It requires a email, Google or Facebook account to create an account.

Canva Free Templates for Students.

Canva Design Graphic Organizer Activities YouTube (2:44mins)

For Google Slides.