Reader’s Notebook, Commonplace Book, and Note-Taking Systems

Many of my posts describe tools and methods for externalizing and encouraging learning by recording some form of written notes. Recent versions of the approaches and tools have emphasized digital tools and concepts such as Smart Notes and a Second Brain. Note-taking has a long history with a large volume of research focused mainly on the use of notes in academic settings. This setting and this research were a major focus of my professional career. Now, with more time, I have broadened my focus beyond the classroom and the format of notes typically recorded in that setting. Other formats have unique practitioners and approaches that often exist in silos and it seems possible greater awareness of these different traditions offers new opportunities. 

I am not going to review past posts here that have emphasized taking digital notes, but propose that such approaches can be compared with two other categories commonplace books and readers’ notebooks (used here as a formal term). 

Commonplace books have been around forever and the commonplace books kept by famous creative people are sometimes explored for their historical significance (e.g., Da Vinci ). Commonplace books are often divided by topic and thus are different from a diary which is organized sequentially by date. Commonplace books were often collections of quotes copied from books and organized into topics. 

A reader’s notebook is a tool used by readers to track their reading, reflect on texts, and engage more deeply with literature. It is often used in classrooms, book clubs, or personal reading routines. While the specific components of a reader’s notebook can vary depending on its purpose, here are the most common components. 

  1. A reading log: books that have been read (title, author, date read) and books to be read. What was the personal rating of the book?
  2. Book summaries and notes: Important quotes, key ideas, themes
  3. Reflections and responses: reactions and potential applications. Would book be recommended? 
  4. Characters and plot: Appropriate for works of fiction.
  5. Vocabulary: unfamiliar words with definitions encountered while reading
  6. Questions and predictions: Questions related to the text. What is the author trying to say? How do I think this will end? Am I interpreting this correctly?
  7. Connections: Text-to-self. Text-to-other texts. Text-to-life or world experiences
  8. Visuals: charts, diagrams, drawings copies or created. 
  9. Related books: other books by author or related relevant works. Author bio. 
  10. Discussion notes: class or book club notes from discussions.
  11. Production goals: are there projects that might follow from the content of the book?

These components could be headings entered in a blank notebook (paper or digital) or could be scaffolded in some way. One common technique used in K12 classrooms making use of Google Classroom is to create and share a Google Slide file with slides prepared as templates for different assigned components. The user (student) can then duplicate slides from the templates as needed to create their Notebook. A cottage industry has sprung up among educators preparing and selling the collections of templates on outlets such as “Teachers Pay Teachers”. 

For those interested, here is a tutorial outlining how to set up Readers’ Notebooks, a great example of the type of template collection one could find and purchase, and just so you don’t get the impression this learning tool only applies in K12 a higher ed example.

Readers’ Notebooks and Commonplace Books are both tools for recording and organizing thoughts, ideas, and information, often related to reading or personal reflection. While they share some similarities, they also have distinct purposes and methods of use. Here’s a breakdown of what I think are frequent differences in practice.

Basic Comparison of Reader’s Notebook and Commonplace Book

Reader’s NotebookCommonplace Book
Primary PurposeEngage with and process textbooks and personally selected booksProcess and store content from a variety of sources
Learning goalsPrimary use is typically focused on assigned texts and improvement of reading skillUsed to collect and synthesize knowledge across interests
Typical contextMost commonly used in educational settings or book clubsUsed by scholars, writers, and thinkers to compile knowledge
FormatCan be freeform, but commonly structured using templates in educational settingsCommonly freeform
Intended durationIn academic setting, duration is the length of a course or to tract reading interests and performance through multiple gradesIntended for long-term accumulation of potentially useful information and thoughts.

The Continuum

I wonder if Readers’ Notebooks, Commonplace Books, and Tools for building long-term notetaking systems might be positioned along a continuum with different goals being emphasized within transitions that all are based on the desire to document learning experiences. Transitions might be applied that include level of formal structure, unit of information and means of connecting, expectations of the modification of source units over time, likelihood content will be shared directly with others, and degree to which approach is intended to feed into external products versus documenting and examining personal experiences. 

One of my personal interests has always been whether learners are taught and coached on their efforts to externalize learning experiences. As a college prof interested in the hows and whys of taking notes, I observed that so many students just kind of wrote stuff down without previous formal discussions concerning specific tactics and explanations of why specific tactics were being promoted. I wonder if the template-oriented approach of the Reader’s Notebook with the common practice of sharing with classmates and the teacher might represent a way to develop insights and skills related to taking notes. 

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Instagram to Pixelfed

Social media users seem to be living in a period of time when many are questioning their long-time commitments to specific big tech platforms. Perhaps they object to the political leanings of owners and the way they have tweaked the algorithms that generate automatic content feeds in objectionable ways. Perhaps they object to privacy issues that target them both for ads and for other content. For many years, they may have held similar concerns, but felt locked in by the network effect – the accumulation of friends and contacts connected to them and each other. 

This has been my personal experience. I became a Twitter member in 2006. That was a long time ago in Internet time. I joined TruthSocial much more recently. I left both platforms a few months ago for a variety of reasons. With Twitter, I was upset with the algorithm that seemed to send me (the “For me” option) more and more content I regarded as misinformation and also lowered the chances I would see posts containing links. Links to interesting content were one of the reasons I had previously found Twitter (not X) to be useful. With TruthSocial, I left because the election of 2024 was over and my interest had been countering the misinformation so common on that platform. There seems little point now.

I am having second thoughts because abandoning those platforms to the infidels seems only a way to change the experience for others. I may change my mind and check in once and a while to explore.

I do think we now have options whether we prefer to commit to individual platforms or maintain a meaningful, active presence on several. The power of the network effect has abated and federated services offer flexibility.

Instagram to Pixelfed

This post describes the expansion of the way I use two photo-heavy or photo-first platforms. Many probably consider Instagram the default in this category. I used Instagram originally to share images with friends and family. Friends and family were also users so it was easy to fall into this commitment. My use expanded beyond sharing images and captions and this transition seemed true of many.

I started using Pixelfed in 2019 which was soon after it was first made available. I take a lot of photos and have had the opportunity to take pictures in many locations. Pixelfed became a way to share some of my best with others interested in photography.

Why change and what will be different?

I was prompted to write this post mostly because Pixelfed just released apps for iOS and Android. The version I had used from my laptop or desktop computer was fine for my focus on sharing my best photos which was my perception of the way others used the platform at that time. Many folks use Instagram on their phones in a broader variety of ways moving seamlessly from collecting images to sharing images to friends and family. It is easy and informal. Pixelfed can be used in the same way and I think the phone-based version will greatly expand the way the platform is used.

You might want to explore an alternative to Instagram because of some of the reasons I have already mentioned. There are other implications that might be less obvious. First, there is the privacy issue. Pixelfed does not host ads and has no need to collect user data to target ads. Second, Pixelfed is a federated service. This means there are multiple hosts referred to as instances some of which may have a unique focus. Hosts with identifiable interests allow users to find and associate with users similar to themselves. Still, users are not limited to a specified topic and you experience content on many different topics. It is a difference in topic density that differentiates such sites from Instagram. For example, Mastodon is a different federated, but related service comparable to Twitter (X). I am a member of two Maston instances which have attracted different types of users. Twit.social is run by a technology podcaster and has mostly folks interested in technology. Mastodon.education as the name implies attracts mostly folks interested in educational issues. Pixelfed works in the same way and multiple hosts are available. I joined the original instance (Pixelfed.social). Here is an interesting difference between Instagram and Twitter and Mastodon and Pixelfed. Users of Mastodon instances can follow my image posts on Pixelfed and most posts will appear in their feeds. So, federation allows this interesting mechanism for both focus and cross-interest sharing. 

I use the same user identifier on all federated platforms (grabe – grabe@twit.social, grabe@mastodon.education, and grabe@pixelfed.social). This consistency ends up being helpful as searching for grabe within one of the platforms will find me in all of the instances of all type. I will demonstrate this in detail later in this post. 

Pixelfed

For those unfamiliar with PixelFed, it looks and operates very much like Instagram. The following image shows the feed using the iOS app. If you look at the bottom of the one post from the feed that is visible, you should see a + within a red box. This is the button used to bring up the template for submitting your own photo and text. 

The following is the empty template for generating a post and the second image a post with a photo and text. The red box in the first image identifies the button used to upload photos from your iOS photos collection.

Following other users from their federated accounts

The easiest way (I think) to follow other users is to conduct a search. The search box should be easy to locate. I may be aware of another user already or identify someone through a discovery feed. In this case, I want to follow my Pixelfed account from one of my Mastodon instances. As I explained earlier, I use “grabe” as my name in all of my instances and the second and third image show the response to searching for “grabe” and the use of the options presented to follow the individual and instance that interests me. Select “Follow” and new content will appear in your feed.

Summary

Hopefully, this post explained several reasons someone might want to use federated social media in place of some of the major platforms or to add social media instances to one’s existing online presence. The specific example proposed that Pixelfed is a reasonable and perhaps desirable alternative to Instagram. Pixelfed is easy to join and use. The opportunity to link across instances of different federated categories was demonstrated and offers some unique experiences not available with the platforms wanting to concentrate users and prevent them from straying. 

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Notetaking in the lab and the wild

Human behavior can be scientifically studied in the laboratory and the wild. This is the case with notetaking and other study behaviors. When politicians use the phrase “the science of learning” it can be misleading to the public because science in laboratory settings and in the wild can seemingly lead to different conclusions and related recommendations. I believe that the controversy of the “science of reading” is related to this issue, but I have greater experience with notetaking and study behavior so I will stick to explaining how this works in this more familiar area.

I have been referencing Daniel Willingham’s work a lot lately, and the following quote offers a good introduction to my point. In commenting on textbook companies building in proven study opportunities within their textbooks as aids to students, Willingham offers the following comment:

… if the readings include learning aids such as chapter outlines, chapter previews and summaries, boldface or italicized terms, or practice test questions, don’t try to use these learning aids as a replacement for reading the text. The funny thing about these features is that there’s very good research evidence that they work. Publishing companies paid to have high-quality research conducted; researchers had people read textbook chapters (with or without the learning aids), and they found that people who used the learning aids understood and remembered more than those who did not.

But the psychologists Regan Gurung and David Daniel pointed out that students “in the wild” will not necessarily use such materials the same way they were used by students in the laboratory. Gurung and Daniel suggested that some students use learning aids not to supplement the reading but to avoid it. They read the summary, look at the boldface terms, and then try to answer the practice test questions to see whether they understand enough to we skip the reading.

Willingham and other researchers (e.g., Gurung) note that educational research conducted under carefully controlled conditions may not predict applied situations. Applied situations often involve interactions as individuals make personal decisions about how learning strategies are applied. They may have different goals, different abilities, or different goals and life situations which cause them to use strategies in ways not intended or maybe not at all. Also tactics intended for the classroom situations may not encourage the development of personal skills that would be most likely used in life situations.

When I was still teaching, I sometimes contrasted attempting to do science with humans in contrast to what are often described as the “hard sciences” by note that the chemicals in a chemical reaction don’t decide if they feel like interacting. 

In looking back on my own research which was conducted in applied settings I was continually frustrated by this type of issue. I focused a lot of what I did on trying to create adaptive computer-supported study environments. The idea was that a computer can offer questions related to learning goals and use student accuracy and answer confidence to identify areas of weakness and to provide direct connections to the related textbook material. The idea was to identify heat maps of more difficult material for individual learners, to provide questions related to the areas of difficulty more frequently during a study session, and even to provide access to the question related content on the screen if the student wanted. Built into the online delivery system were ways to record the amount of use, the question performance and awareness of understanding, the use of the online content and the delay following wrong answers. My frustration arose from the findings that the system was really designed to assist less capable students (lower reading ability, poorer metacognitive awareness of strengths and weaknesses) who as it turned out were far less likely to use the system and to use it in ways the research would suggest were helpful (e.g., taking advantage of the feedback following wrong answers and especially wrong answers readers thought they understood). The failed opportunity to use the system to try to recognize the lack of understanding makes a good example of what Willingham, Gurung, and others have described. Even when investing time, these learners answered question after question without taking advantage of the opportunity to process feedback.

Understanding Why Tactics Work

Those situations in which learners invest time, but do so in an inefficient way are what I find most fascinating. Motivation makes a huge difference in learning, but would seem less of an issue with these individuals. Perhaps motivation is reflected in how hard in comparison to how long a learner works. This way of thinking would seem similar to Willingham’s “Outsmart your brain” suggestion that the brain interprets easier as better. It could follow that a possible remedy would be better understanding of how a given tactic works in addition to simply learning how to perform certain tactics. Answering questions is harder than rereading but works better because answering questions requires greater effort in actively engaging memory and thinking. Taking notes is better than highlighting because taking paraphrase notes requires more cognitive thinking. Etc.

I can’t help thinking about the fascination and process-oriented debate those interested in Personal Knowledge Management have with tools and tactics in comparison to most students in formal learning settings. Perhaps this is just an impression on my part, but it seems generally to be the case. If I am correct, I think the difference is in the opportunity self-directed learners have to set personal goals and as a consequence invest time in trying to understand why differences in processes matter. The only alternative I can imagine would involve more direct instruction and how to study instruction is not emphasized or cut when resources are in short supply. 

References

Daniel, David B., and Debra A. Poole. “Learning for life: An ecological approach to pedagogical research.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 4, no. 1 (2009): 91-96.

Grabe, M., & Flannery, K. (2009/2010). A preliminary exploration of on-line study question performance and response certitude as predictors of future examination performance.  Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 38(4), 457-472.

Grabe, M., Flannery, K., & Christopherson, K. (2008). Voluntary use of online study questions as a function of previous minimal use requirements and learner aptitude. Internet and Higher Education. 11, 145-151.

Grabe, M. & Holfeld, B. (2014). Estimating the degree of failed understanding: a possible role for online technology. Journal of Computer Assisted Instruction. 30, 173-186.

Gurung, Regan A. R., and David B. Daniel. (2005).  Evidence-Based Pedagogy: Do Pedagogical Features Enhance Student Learning? (pps. 41–55). In Best Practices for Teaching Introduction to Psychology, Dana S. Dunn and Stephen L. Chew (eds.), Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

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Notetaking – Your brain is lazy

My favorite writer who focuses on classroom learning is Daniel Willingham. He has a way of explaining and applying research that is both approachable and actionable. My interests and vocational focus overlap with the topics of his books allowing me to be appreciative of his insights and his creative way of communicating the mindset of educators and writers and the behaviors of both highly motivated and more casual students. 

Willngham’s most recent book, Outsmart Your Brain, considers notetaking multiple times as he examines several learning challenges (the large lecture, lengthy textbook assignments, labs and other hands-on activities). Taking notes in formal educational settings can differ in important ways from the writing I do about autonomous lifelong learners involved in what is often described as Personal Knowledge Management or Building a Second Brain, but he speculates about important cognitive processes rather than just offering “here is what you should do” tactics. I assume that processes generalize and with so little research focused on learning outside of formal educational settings, the commentary I offer is largely based on using what classroom-focused researchers find that would seem to apply to learning on your own. 

The meaning of Willingham’s title, “Outsmart Your Brain”, is that what seems to be an easy to accomplish tactic is often the wrong choice. He differentiates the notetaking choices made when listening to lectures and reading. In contrast to many, it should be noted that Willingham supports the lecture as an important educational strategy. It is efficient as a way to communicate information, and face-to-face efficiency seems to offer better effectiveness than recorded and distributed content. The major challenge with lectures is that we tend to speak much more rapidly than individuals can write and in a large group setting feedback to a presenter is difficult to generate and would varies greatly from listener to listener. The related issue on the part of listeners is that many are unable to sort out what should be retained in notes. Often what is written is what is understood which is understandable, but an example of doing the easier thing. He notes that collaboration or instructor-provided notes offer a solution, but proposes that these resources should be used in addition to taking notes which is a generative cognitive and thus beneficial process.

Willingham supports the researchers arguing that taking notes with pen on paper to be superior to taking notes using a digital device and as proposed in the “desirable difficulty” hypothesis proposes that the insight that more can be recorded on a keyboard provides a false sense of accomplishment. This is another example of the brain making the wrong decision. I disagree on this point and argue that Willingham ignores the opportunity a digital device can provide a written record and link audio to notes in ways that allow missed information to be re-examined. A link references the corresponding location in the audio when a note was taken. Willingham does recognize and discuss recording lectures, but discusses this opportunity as inefficient unaware I assume that the connections some apps store between notes and audio (or video) allow learners great control of how the audio is used. 

Willingham discusses note-taking as a useful addition to reading recognizing that with reading the learner does not have to deal with the lack of control present when listening. The flawed option he calls out is highlighting which again offers the learner a false sense of accomplishment. He cites an interesting study in which multiple used textbooks from the same class were examined and the finding that the text selected as important varied greatly. I could not help thinking of the “most common highlighted” option available with Kindle books. 

A common issue with both lectures and books is that both tend to be hierarchical, but are experienced as sequential experiences. I interpret this problem to be one that understanding is the construction of a model of how things are interrelated. Lectures and writers tend to have this model and organize what they offer accordingly, but the experience of the learner is sequential and building a hierarchical model in real time is often too demanding. Imagine an outline that is used to develop a lecture or written product and in which the product shared moves through each part of the outline from higher to lower elements as a sequence and you can imagine the issue of reconstructing the outline. Learners can rework the content they have stored in search of this structure and presents can help by offering an overview and referring back to this overview as the presentation unfolds. Willingham speculates that learners possibly read textbooks based on their experience with fiction.

Willingham proposes two additional strategies making use of notes often ignored by students. The first is the sharing and discussion of notes within small groups. Again, this is not to replace the task of taking notes, but a way to identify ideas that have been missed or misunderstood. The second is a cross-examination of notes taken from lectures and from assigned readings. Too many seem to assume that the elimination of one source is a possible opportunity, but he argues that cross-referencing sources like cross-referencing with peers allows for additional active processing.

Summary

This was intended as more than a book review, but it is a recommendation that both educators and learners read this book. Many reviewers have noted that it should be assigned reading for new college students faced with the challenge of taking more responsibility for their own learning. The notion that the brain leads us to do things in the moment that are not necessarily the best for the future is important to recognize and the assumption that taking notes or reading a book could benefit from the consideration of nonobvious strategies deserves careful consideration. When are important study skills taught and which educators are responsible for helping learners develop these skills? 

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Take digital notes for best lecture performance

I know that many argue the research demonstrates handwriting is superior to keyboarding when it comes to taking lecture notes. I have always taken the opposite position based on my personal experience. Here is a new take in support of my personal perspective.

Danial Willingham is one of the best cognitive researchers translating research findings for educators and the general public. He has a new 2023 book (Outsmart Your Brain) that offers very interesting analyses of learning challenges and solutions. Note-taking is one of the topics he addresses at length. What he has to say about the challenges of taking notes allows me to state my case. The topic also helps explain the book’s title.

Willingham cites research indicating that people speak six times faster than most can take notes. This reality in combination with the multiple cognitive processing tasks involved in taking notes places a learner in a difficult situation. By multiple processes, Willingham indicates that when taking notes, you must switch back and forth between what the lecturer is saying and showing and your notes. You must evaluate what you are hearing and seeing and decide what you should record. You must both attempt to understand what is being said and make the effort to record what you can. There are probably more skills, but this should be enough. The point is that there is not enough attention to go around and each student must make choices. Translating/paraphrasing is ideal, but when we are pressured our brain drifts toward writing as much as possible and that is easiest to do by writing exactly what was presented. It is as if the learner decides perhaps he or she can figure things out later. 

Some who have supported taking notes by hand suggest that despite the reality that handwriting can record less than heyboarding to start with, this is actually a good thing because it requires learners to focus on the important content. This is sometimes described as desirable difficulty. The term sounds cool and it would fit with Willingham’s notion that our brain leads us to take the easy way rather than the most productive way. So the argument is when pressured those taking notes by hand take the more difficult path and as a consequence come out understanding more.

Just to be accurate. Willingham suggests students should take handwritten notes and refers to the existing research. Willingham is especially concerned that students can’t resist the temptation to open a second window and explore unrelated online content. The following explains why I disagree. Should you make things more difficult and make use of a notebook and pen? 

Apps that record audio and synch with your notes

My personal experience has led me to read, annotate, and take presentation notes digitally. I have suggested doing this because it fits a long-term view of writing based on what I read and watch. My insight involved finding an efficient way to isolate useful information from many books and research articles for storage, organization, and retrieval months or years later. This is not the situation Willingham was describing.

For students, some digital note-taking tools are better suited to dealing with the multiple processing demands Willingham identifies than the traditional paper and pen. Willingham suggests students should decide before a lecture whether they want to understand more or write more. The tools I recommend allow the same decision but are far more forgiving when it comes to the consequences of this decision. The apps I have in mind simultaneously record audio while the user takes notes from a keyboard and with some tools a stylus. The notes and drawings are linked through time stamps to the audio. This connection and the related storage capabilities free the student from having to get as much down as possible. The audio provides a backup for information that is missed or is confusing at the pace of the presentation. It is not a necessity that the learning get as much as possible down on paper or screen in real-time. If the student wants to paraphrase, the audio is a backup. If the presentation results in so little understanding that nothing meaningful can be entered to be studied, just enter some ???? as a note and listen to the audio later when you have time to think.

What I am describing are not some recent innovations and I have never understood why students would take notes on a laptop or tablet and not use this type of software. BTW – I understand several of these apps now can generate transcription, but I am not proposing that transcription be used as a substitute for taking your own notes. The logic here is the same as taking notes even if the instructor provides access to notes or copies of any slides used in presentations. The process of generating your own representation of a presentation is helpful.

The following are some options I have used (other software with similar capabilities may exist). The tool you choose could depend on whether you want a free app or pro options such as online storage, whether you want to combine text and drawings in your notes, and whether additional features are useful to you for tasks other than taking class notes. 

Soundnote

Audionote 

Notability

The following image is the interface for Soundnote.

The following video offers a description of using Soundnote.

Source

Willingham, D. T. (2023). Outsmart your brain: Why learning is hard and how you can make it easy. Simon and Schuster.

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The screen time issue – nudges or blocks?

What can be done to reduce the time spent on our devices has become a very public question. The issue has resulted in K12 schools being legislated in many areas to prevent students from bringing their phones to class and concerns are common that the rest of us should also cut back. I have written previously about the issue when present in young phone users and whether heavy use should be characterized as a physical addiction or a bad habit

The present post originated from my continued reading on this topic and an article I read related to the bad habit perspective proposing that adolescent screen time could be reduced if adolescents became more aware of their screen time and begin to think of it in terms of time not spent on other activities they value. This article described a program called Project Reboot and the Clearspace app. The app allows a user to set specific limits and informs the user when limits are being exceeded. The notion of improving mindfulness and the exertion of personal control seemed related to the bad habit perspective. Is awareness enough or should use simply be prevented?

Research on apps that intervene

It seemed likely that researchers would have investigated digital strategies to address a problem that originates with digital devices and I located a meta-analysis of such strategies (Tahmillah and colleagues, 2023). I recommend anyone interested in this topic take a look at this article because it does a great job of categorizing apps and the approaches taken to impact screen time. Just the list of apps was informative (Clearspace was not included) if for no other reasons than many may be unaware that such interventions exist and because the costs vary greatly. Identifying the apps proven to have an impact on behavior in combination with the mechanisms employed by such apps was informative. Simply blocking the use of an app or taking phones away limits screen time, but technology in general and most apps specifically have both opportunities and limitations so most of us in the long run would be better off making decisions about when and for how long to use our apps. 

The classification system

Rahmillah and colleagues proposed the following categories:

  1. Block
  2. Self-tracking
  3. Goal advancement
  4. Reward/punishment

Categories were further differentiated by underlying processes. For example, goal advancement, the approach that most interested me, included among the processes the opportunity to set a goal and a goal warning that the limit was approaching. 

The idea of the meta-analysis was to identify the apps that had demonstrated success in reducing screen time and then consider the underlying processes used by the more successful apps. In reviewing the studies found to impact screen time, I discovered the built-in screen time capabilities of iOS were listed (example of iOS screentime study available online). Given the costs I had found associated with other apps, this seemed important to me as users might be reluctant to consider costly apps this seemed important. 

Description of iOS Screen Time Controls

iOS Screen Time offers capabilities that seem examples of the goal-setting and goal-warning processes of a Goal Advancement approach. The following describes how to set up an iOS device to provide these functions.

The following image shows important iOS settings for limiting use. These features are available from the System settings. The Screen Time button (left-hand panel) provides access to multiple settings in the right-hand panel. Goals can often be accomplished in multiple ways and I am describing just one sequence here.

From the following image, note the following. The settings you can implement can be protected by a password (red box near bottom of image). If you wanted to set controls on a child’s phone to prevent access or limit the time on an app, you might want to protect the setting with a password. For your own use, you might not want to use a password offering you a way to ignore the notice that you had reached the limit you had established. You can set limits in several ways – individually or by category. If you decide to set limits by category, you might want to exclude some apps from that category. Always allowed provides a way to do this. 

The approach I am taking here makes use of the See All Apps and Website Activity option (Green box). 

The Apps activity option shows time spent by app or by category. You can toggle between the two presentations by selecting the button shown in the smaller green box (this would take you to the app view from the category view). Toward the right end of a category, you should see the > symbol. Selecting this symbol will reveal the apps associated with that category. 

You can now select the category or individual apps to set limits. I have selected Instagram. 

I can then set the maximum time per day and customize the time during a week should I want to do something more complex such as extend the limit for the weekend. 

What happens when you exceed your goal? You will encounter the following Time Limit Screen. If you have a password set, you (or someone with the password) would have to enter the password to provide you more time. If no password has been set, you see the following options and can make an informed selection to continue.

Screenshot

Summary

Apps are available to help individuals manage their screen time and research indicates some apps do produce improvement. Of course, research studies do not claim every individual will respond in this manner. Some techniques allow individuals to set goals and inform the user when they have spent the maximum time they intended to spend. This approach is based on the assumption that the lack of awareness is a reason many exceed the amount of time individuals intend to spend and behavior will change when a method of improving awareness is provided. iOS has screen time controls built in that allow for goal setting and goal awareness to be provided. Because these functions come with the operating system on Apple devices a user does not have to spend money on additional capabilities. This post explains how to set goals in iOS. 

Reference

Rahmillah, F. I., Tariq, A., King, M., & Oviedo-Trespalacios, O. (2023). Evaluating the effectiveness of apps designed to reduce mobile phone use and prevent maladaptive mobile phone use: multimethod study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 25, e42541.

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Weava

In the last few years, I have explored, used, and written about a large number of highlighting/annotation tools. At some point, one tool and service begins to seem very much like every other. Still, developers continue to create new, but similar products. I do not think most individuals need to explore each new product. I have settled on a small set of tools I use, but I continue to explore other tools mostly to make suggestions for others to consider.

I believe that most tools would work for most people, but small differences might allow some tools to match to varying degrees with different priorities. Among these priorities are the following activities:

  1. Creation of a personal resource collection – A user wants to accumulate ideas, concepts, strategies, or examples from what has been read or watched. The tool used may have built-in capabilities to accumulate this information or be designed to export the content the tool has excerpted to another tool better suited to long-term organization, manipulation, and retrieval. 
  2. Social annotation – A user may want a tool suited to the implementation of a collaborative reading and annotation process. Value is found in the identification of useful content that has not been read or the comparison of significant elements several individuals have identified in the same source.
  3. Scaffolded reading – An educator or expert adds elements to a document or video to assist learners or less knowledgeable individuals in processing a source of interest. In other posts, I have described this as layering in that an expert adds elements on top of topics of existing content (highlights, comments, links, questions) to encourage others to process the base content more effectively. 

Weava is a Chrome extension for highlighting, annotating, and sharing comments made to web pages and PDFs. I was excited to discover it because Weava has made an effort to promote its capabilities to educators. There just seems to be more education-focused layering tools for video content and I can add Weava to the tools available for web pages. There is a free and a premium ($4 a month) version with a discount for educators. I have not used Weava with students so my experience is limited to personal web annotation.

To get started with Weava, you need to download and install the Weava extension into your Chrome browser and create an account. Weava is used in two ways. It is used while viewing a web page or PDF and it is used later to organize and work with your highlights and annotations in what is called the Dashboard. You have access to a sidebar while using Weava with a web page and you use the Dashboard when working with the content you accumulate. The Dashboard is available from https://weava.com/

In the image below you can see the icon for Weava which has been selected while viewing the web page in the left-hand part of the image and the sidebar which displays highlights taken in the right-hand portion. 

To highlight text, drag text from the document and a small palette opens showing color options. Some users use different colors to indicate different types of information. Select a color. To add a note, click the now highlighted content and another palette opens with an area for entering text. 

This is the dashboard view available when you login to Weava. The dashboard allows access to the documents you have accumulated. In this case, the document described above (large window) and related highlights and annotations (middle window). The document to be displayed selected in the very left-hand window (in this case stored in the folder blog research). 

Selecting a stored document to display provides one additional opportunity. The Cite button generates a citation for the source document and provides a way to copy (export) this citation. One recommended educational use of Weava is to collect of resources and to use this collection to generate some type of educational project. The citation associated with each source can be used to provide a list of resources that can accompany a completed project. 

One final suggestion. Frequently, users return to their notes and highlights and find the selected information does not make as much sense as it probably did when it was selected. Clicking on the note will take a user to the location in the document associated with that note so that the full context can be reviewed.

Summary Comments

Import and export capabilities can be important to users. My personal workflow is focused on long-term storage, organization, and retrieval using Obsidian. Weava does not export to Obsidian so it is not the highlighting and annotation tool I rely on. It does export to other Personal Knowledge Management tools (e.g., Glasp). It makes the most sense to me to think of Weava as developed for specific projects a student or knowledge worker would focus on. The concept seems to be optimized for a targeted project and the search for documents (web pages and PDFs) is useful for that project. Students projects would be ideally suited to this focus as would knowledge workers who know what the goal of a specific task they have taken on would be. Second Brain or Personal Knowledge Management goals are broader and less specifically defined so other tools are probably more appropriate for those wanting a long-term less targeted accumulation of content. 

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