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Digital Wellbeing (Open Learning)

Styles of note-making

Woman working on a planePortable

It’s helpful to think how you can make your notes portable, in case you have your best ideas on the bus or while in a completely different lecture
 

Handwritten

Handwriting on a page

Tables with columns

Tables with columns

Cornell note-taking

Cornell note-maingThis is an example of Cornell notetaking.  The main differences from just noting down points is that you have a left hand margin for questions and key points, then a summary section at the bottom that you can go back to when you’re revising or when you want to make use of these ideas in an assignment

Mind mapsmind map

Here’s an example of a mindmap created using mindmap software – but you could also draw it by hand. It can feel like a freer way of creating notes

Diagrams

Diagram exampleYou can create hierarchies using the Smart Art features of Powerpoint – might be helpful if you want to organise your notes into a specific structure.

Hand-drawn notes

Hand-drawn notesThese are notes created by a radiography student.  They were her summary of what she’d learned that week so weren’t her original lecture notes but her key points.  It was a subject she didn’t enjoy so she used bright colours to keep positive.  She also said that she was a skilled typist so she could type without thinking, whereas doing it this way meant she had to consider the content. These notes are very attractive and well-thought out but it must have been time-consuming to create them – you probably wouldn’t have time to do this for all your notes.

Annotating text

Powerpoint annotations     By annotating text we mean adding notes to something that has already been created, so you’re adding notes as you’re listening or reading. These notes can be on print-outs or on online.  The example on the left is from PowerPoint.  Did you know that if you print out PowerPoint slides three to a page you get this option to add notes to them? If you struggle to understand what is said in a lecture, these notes could just be to highlight slides which are not clear to you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mendeley annotations

  • The example on the right is from software called Mendeley – for those of you who have an iPad it’s one of your apps, but it’s also a web site you can log into, import articles or book sections into then add highlights or notes to them. 
  • The advantages of annotating texts is that your notes will be in context and may be quick to do.
  • The disadvantages are that your notes could be stored in different places - will you remember where you’ve put them?  If you choose an online option, there’s also the time taken to learn how to use the software.

Pictures

Picture notesIf you are mainly a visual learner, here are some ideas for notes.  You can see that we’ve used pictures for ideas. We’ve also broken up the text into smaller parts and used colour coding to link ideas.  These notes were originally just text, recorded by me/one of my colleagues at a recent conference at Teesside University.  It took time to turn them into something more visual, but she/I enjoyed doing it and felt that she remembered the ideas more clearly than if they’d just been words.  So even if you’re not a visual learner, you might find this a useful activity to keep you motivated for example for revision of key ideas (like the example from the radiography student that we showed earlier)