I happened on this Medium post describing what the author called the Explanation Effect. The article itself was about strategies we can apply to learn and understand and the explanation effect sounded very similar to what I have previously described as Teaching to Learn. Teaching and even preparing to teach are great generative learning activities as most teachers will tell you. You must understand something to teach it well. The explanation effect implies more than the one-way act of teaching others and might be more accurately described as an educated discussion in which the parties involved share and perhaps even argue about something. Hence there is an exchange of information, accurate or not, about something. The Medium post argued this type of experience is one of the best ways to learn.
Generative learning activities have always been a personal fascination and the explanation effect would be an example. It is an example of an activity in which engagement in an external activity provides a likely way to manipulate important cognitive behaviors involved in retention and understanding. Many of the behaviors learners engage in as study activities are intended as generative activities.
To understand why engaging in tutoring (as a learner) or peer teaching (both parties are really learners) is proposed as a superior generative activity, it might be helpful to consider a hierarchical framework of generative activities proposed by Chi (citation included at end of this post). In this hierarchical framework, higher-level activities integrate lower-level activities and as one advances through the hierarchy it is proposed that activities at that level are more productive. In the following image, I have identified the stages of this framework and added an example of each level I assume would be familiar to most educators.
Smart notes require that a learner summarize and extend an input with personal insights or examples. So, a student might highlight a concept in a textbook (active) and then construct a note that summarizes what was highlighted as the learner understands it based on existing knowledge and perhaps include an example. Hence, additional cognitive activities would be included in the construction of a note. It is important to recognize that an activity (e.g., creating a note) may or may not involve productive cognitive behaviors (e.g., copying the text into a notebook) or may involve other cognitive activities leading to even more enhanced understanding and application. As an educational device, external activities are assigned with the expectation that the use of the activity will be productive, but the cognitive connections are always under the control of the learner.
I like to describe interactive activities as involving secondary inputs. If students discuss or argue about concepts from a book, the information in the book is the original input, but the comments from a peer or a tutor are a second input. The second input may add something new for the learner to add to an existing understanding or challenge the understanding the student has originally generated and now force a reconsideration and possible modification.
Chi and others have engaged in research to justify the proposed advantages I have described here. When researchers offer insights that hopefully will influence practice, the impact tends to depend on how practitioners translate general recommendations and how practical it seems it would be to come up with activities matched to these insights. I think educators understand practices such as guided discussion or issue debates and I hope the way in which I have explained the benefits of seeking activities at the constructive and interactive levels of Chi’s framework is persuasive
Chi, M. T. (2009). Active?constructive?interactive: A conceptual framework for differentiating learning activities. Topics in cognitive science, 1(1), 73-105.
Chi, M. T., & Wylie, R. (2014). The ICAP framework: Linking cognitive engagement to active learning outcomes. Educational psychologist, 49(4), 219-243.
I started posting about student highlighting, note-taking, and annotation as part of my observation that reading with a digital device offers some lifetime advantages over reading paper resources. The issue of comprehension vs. paper is only the initial stage of reading and the opportunities for layering personal comments on primary sources, the storage and organization of these comments, and the retrieval of these comments offers advantages for studying and written projects based on ideas from multiple sources.
Once you begin exploring digital annotations and note-taking you can move into many different subtopics. For educators, any claims related to digital annotation and related activities (note-taking, highlighting) would typically involve short-term student uses of these skills (e.g., preparing for an exam, generating a multi-source written product).
There are many investigations and analyses related to these ends. If I were to recommend a single source relevant to this topic it would be one that is a couple of decades old. It is also a study conducted with college students. Simpson and Nist made several key points in their introduction that I believe continue to be of great importance. Even though and perhaps because they worked with college learners, I think their most important observation was that treatments that involve a skill such as highlighting or annotation require the assurance that learners applying these study strategies do so effectively. They raise the same argument I have made multiple times. Have learners ever received guidance in how they should go about learning strategies such as highlighting and annotation? If those investigating study techniques in college learners are concerned with what is often called treatment fidelity, a similar concern should be raised when conducting annotation, highlighting and pretty much any study strategy with younger learners.
The Simpson and Nist study developed over a three-week period of time using the type of content college students would encounter in their classes (I.e., extended period of time and authentic content). Students were exposed to sample annotated materials, provided examples of specific types of annotations (e.g., summaries, questions of understanding, potential examples), and offered samples of their attempts at annotation for review by peers and the instructor. The comparison of multiple choice questions responses covering each target source involved the treatment group and a group asked to study and generate possible exam questions. The annotation group demonstrated a significant advantage on the MC exams.
This study made use of paper source material, but offers a realistic example of what it takes to apply the treatment strategies in a way that generates an advantage. It cannot be assumed that common study techniques such as highlighting or annotation are applied in a cognitively generative way even though some within a peer group use such strategies. It is very possible students have never been involved in a conversation focused on the use of such strategies or practiced them under supervision, Students read and write in most classes, but responsibility for developing proficiency in such skills in secondary and lower-level college classes may be one of those things assumed to be someone else’s job.
Simpson, M. L., & Nist, S. L. (1990). Textbook annotation: An effective and efficient study strategy for college students. _Journal of Reading_, _34_(2), 122-129.
Some knowledge workers (writers) offer descriptions of their writing process using titles such as “How I work”. The benefit, I assume, is to provide others insights regarding the flow or process used by the author that might result in a beneficial adjustment to the reader’s own activity. I will begin by offering a general overview of the process I use and then will explain how the system works when I write based on a specific type of source material.
At the general level, I imagine what I am trying to do is to create bi-directional linkages between products. Those products include the original source material, stand-alone notes, and my original document that is intended to be shared with others. One additional goal in this process is important. I want to create sources in the process of writing that have value to me over time and not just for one project. By this, I mean I want the notes and original sources to be processed in such a way that I can easily use them to locate relevant information and to be more efficient to use for future projects. I make use of digital tools and digital information sources to achieve these goals.
Context
One concept that has proven useful in how I have come to think about and describe my workflow is that of context. The bi-directional linkages between products I have generated are constructed to maintain context. So, the original sources are highlighted and annotated when they are read. The highlights and notes exist within the context of the original sources. Some of these notes and highlights are extracted from these original sources to generate smart notes using a different digital tool. However, this extraction process includes links back to the original sources to maintain context. So, at a later point in time, the link associated with a smart note can be used to return to the original document and the location within this document associated with a smart note.
By the way, the definition of a smart note is an idea that is understandable on its own. So these notes which were created based on information obtained elsewhere are written so that they do not require the original source for understanding. This stand-alone capability does not mean that reviewing such notes at a later time would not prompt a return to the original source perhaps for additional information or clarification. This review can be useful. Finally, I use the Smart notes typically generated from multiple original sources to write a product (typically a blog post at this stage of my career).
Thinking about the sequence of written sources is kind of interesting. As one moves through the sequence, there is less reliance on the context of the previous source and a greater focus on my own interpretation and speculation.
Example – pdfs as sources
Much of what I write is based on journal articles that I have access to as pdfs downloaded from my library. I work within an Apple environment and I make use of iCloud as online storage I can access from my iPad and desktop computer. Because of the time invested in accumulating many annotated pdfs and other products over time, the use of iCloud provides me some measure of security for the products I generate. I do create backups for added security.
I first read the source pdfs using a digital tool. I have used Zotero, but I prefer a product specific to Apple called Highlights because it is less complicated to use and just seems more consistent. I mostly highlight while I read, but I also annotate when I know I want to create a Smart note from what I am reading.
Highlighting and annotation are processes that involve context as both processes connect a personal addition at a specific location within the source text. Both Zotero and Highlights allow highlights and notes to be exported as a file separate from the original pdf. There are options for the format in which this file is created and one is markdown. A markdown file is a text file that includes a few reserved text symbols that allow the content of the file to appear with headings and subheadings, links, tags, and other such features when opened with a tool that interprets the reserved markdown symbols. Markdown uses such symbols in a way similar to the symbols used in an HTML file. One of the core benefits of a markdown text file is that it will not eventually age out of usefulness. It is a text file and not a proprietary format so there will always be a way to open a markdown file and one does not have to worry about investing years in a tool that creates a file type that may not be useful if the tool is discontinued.
You get an idea of how Highlight works from the following image. The left-hand window shows the original pdf that has been highlighted. The highlights and notes that are added also appear in the right-hand panel and it is the content from this panel that is exported. The drop-down menu shows the various formats that can be used for export and you should find markdown near the top.
I use Obsidian to store the notes I create. Obsidian is a tool intended for organizing, cross-referencing, and tagging a large collection of notes for an extended period of time. It is a versatile tool, but I use it for storing citations and Smart notes. Obsidian works with markdown files and the content exported from Zotero or Highlights can be imported, manipulated, and stored in Obsidian.
Here is the useful capability I take advantage of when using these tools on my desktop computer. Having everything on the same machine is essential. Both Zotero and Highlights embed information about the location of highlights and notes within the original document. So, when a note is stored in Obsidian exported from one of these highlighting and annotation tools, a link will be included that will allow the Obsidian user to Zotero or Highlights and show the original text in which the highlight or note was embedded. Zotero is more specific and takes you to the exact location. Highlights takes you to the page rather than the specific location on the page.
So, this is what a section of markdown might look like for a note (this from Highlights).
#### [Page 248](highlights://chen2021#page=4)
> After class, students should review the notes to clarify any
> unclear ideas. During this stage, the students can compare their
> own notes to the textbooks or the notes of other students,
> retrieve the key ideas, concepts or items from the notes as
> recall clues, as well as summarize the content of the notes.
When displayed in Obsidian, the note looks like this (see following image). If you look closely, you will see the link to the original pdf stored on my computer (and in iCloud). I typically add some additional information to my Obsidian notes (perhaps the full citation associated with a note). The second image below is more what of my Smart Note looks like. In this image, you can see I have added a tag (#contextualization) that serves several functions including allowing me to find other notes tagged in the same way.
As I write something like this blog post, I use mostly the notes I have saved in Obsidian. If I am using a specific source, I will include the citation for this source at the conclusion of a post and this citation would also allow me to work back through the sequence of products I have described to review both notes and locate the original document.
I have been exploring many digital note-taking and annotation systems for a couple of years now. My involvement might be stretched to a decade plus if you are willing to group tools such as EndNote with this category of tools. My way of thinking about using such tools has been shaped by a career as an educational psychologist with a cognitive perspective on learning applied to topics such as note-taking, highlighting, study behavior, and generative learning activities (e.g., writing to learn, summarization, questions). This background offers some insights into what features of technology-supported learning and thinking tools might be helpful. I have gleaned a few core ideas from more recent reading – progressive summarization, smart notes that I see relevant in combination with both my newer hands-on experiences and my more general cognitive background.
What follows is a personal evaluation of the capabilities of PKM tools based on what I have just described as my personal background and experiences. I have tried to identify a title for this post. “Close, but no cigar” came to mind, but seemed too negative. I decided to go with “almost there”. What I mean by this is that I can patch together a workflow that I think works pretty well, but the system is a bit cumbersome and inefficient. I hope to offer a perspective on what an ideal tool might look like. I have based this ideal tool based on how I think Glasp should work, but so far does not.
My reading activity involves web content, Kindle books, and pdfs of scientific journal articles. Ideally, all of these sources could be stored in an accessible place (I would be willing to live with a location I control – my computer or ideally personal storage online such as iCloud or DropBox). Online storage is important for both security and access from multiple devices. As I will demonstrate in my ideal approach, a common location seems to be important for the connections I see important in the system I imagine. For example, some systems do not store the pdf from which notes are taken. With the service I have in mind (Memex), I can reexamine links between the pdf and notes I have taken if I am on my own computer, but I can only see my notes if I am working on a different computer that only provides me online access. The pdf and the notes are stored in different places with the pdf on my computer and the notes in the cloud.
What follows is my fabricated visual description of a workflow using images from Grasp that I have merged to represent a superior fictitious system. I will be clear on what is not actually there as I proceed. The image (below) shows three panels – the leftmost panel shows original content that has been highlighted and annotated. The second panel shows isolated highlighted and notes. The third panel shows what I now label as a smart note (after Ahrens). The arrows indicate connections across panels that are bidirectional. In other words, you can get from an isolated note or highlight in the middle panel back to where in the original document this highlight exists or where the annotation/note was connected. You can get from my personally generated, standalone, summary note back to the immediate notes or highlights. These bidirectional connections are important for maintaining what might be described as context and attribution. Attribution is important in my writing to link what I write to what others have written. Context is important in establishing the broader set of information within which something I felt was important emerged. Maybe I want to seek other ideas from this same information. Maybe I just want to check on what I concluded because later my summary seems incomplete or maybe erroneous.
The system I describe allows for the generation of Smart Notes or Summary notes (I use such terms interchangeably) which capture an idea in a form that should make sense to me and someone else at a later point in time. The system allows progressive summarization in the sequence of forms getting to a smart note. Highlighting was not part of the progressive summarization process described by Forte, but I think it is fair to use it as a component in the physical transformation from the source to the personal summary I describe here.
What about these descriptions is not available? Glasp cannot be used to read pdfs. This is a serious limitation for an academic who must rely of pdfs of articles from research journals. The processing of Kindle books within Glasp allows the download of highlights and notes, but you cannot link back to the location of the selected content within the context of the original ebook. The personal summary notes (called atomic notes in Glasp) are not associated with a specific original source and you cannot get to that source through links to highlights and notes added to that source. These personal notes just accumulate as one reads different sources in this independent pane. At present, I copy and paste these notes into Obsidian and Mem X to take advantage of the organizational features of these other tools. I suppose it would be ideal if such summary notes could exist in Glasp in a way that would allow the long-term storage and manipulation of these ideas independent of source material.
To be fair to Grasp, it is still a beta service and free at this point. It is useful as is and I have found ways to integrate it with other tools to generate a reasonable workflow. Partly I wrote this post because I was contacted after writing an earlier post about Glasp and was contacted by a developer from the company. I thought I would share what I think a more complete system might look like. I hope my summary of a personal knowledge management workflow offers some insight for those unfamiliar with this expanding collection of digital tools offered to support the personal processing of source documents.
I have highlighted much of what I read for probably 50 years. I started in college and I tried different approaches sometimes highlighting with different colors. My preference was the slim highlighter in yellow. When I began reading using my phone, iPad, and Kindle I learned how to highlight using these devices. My interest in educational technology led me to look more deeply into the opportunities to highlight and annotate on these devices and you may have read what I have had to say about these tools in previous posts.
Here is the thing about highlighting. If you follow the research on the efficacy of different learning/study strategies, you soon understand that highlighting is not particularly useful. I knew this too and I was interested in study techniques long before personal computers were a thing. I taught educational psychology to college students and study behavior was a topic I hoped the students would find relevant. In explaining highlighting’s poor record, I claimed students highlighted too much and may sometimes use highlighting as an excuse for not thinking. I called this the “I’ll get that later” strategy. Too often later never comes. Still, I continued to highlight and I assumed many of these students did too.
There are good reviews of the research on highlighting (Dunlosky, et al, 2013) that reach the conclusion that highlighting has low utility. I think it is important to carefully understand the methodology used in the studies that investigate highlighting. What is the breadth of the perspective? In research that examines the application of note-taking, a distinction is drawn between the generative and external functions of notes. I think a similar issue applies here. The research indicates highlighting is not cognitively active and has limited generative value, but what about external storage. If it was an hour before a major test and I was trying to review the 120 pages that were assigned in my textbook, I would rather I had highlighted that book than not.
Ahrens (citations appear at the end of this post) proposes that underlining (I would assume a practice similar to highlighting) is similar to what Ahrens classifies as fleeting notes. Fleeting notes are taken to quickly capture information and the idea of smart notes that Ahrens emphasizes focuses on the translation of fleeting notes into smart notes. A smart note can stand alone to convey meaning to the note taker and others and requires the note taker to use personal knowledge to generate a note that is meaningful.
A recent Edutopia article on highlighting reached a negative conclusion about the value of highlighting (it may even hinder learning) and suggested solutions educators should propose that could be explained in a way very similar to what I have just proposed; i.e., fleeting vs permanent. They suggest that students a) annotate their highlights with short summaries and personal reflections or b) generate questions related to the content they have highlighted.
The Edutopia suggestions bring me to the topic I want to emphasize.
Technology-based reading offers advantages over paper-based reading that are seldom emphasized. I rely heavily on highlighting when I write on my Kindle or using a browser extension that allows me to highlight web content. I don’t read from paper much anymore, but when I do I also highlight a lot. When I use my iPad or computer to read and highlight, I tend to be using tools that allow me to add annotations (actually extended additions I would prefer to describe as notes) as part of the same integrated approach. I suppose I could read from a paper source and have a notebook on my desk at the same time, but I have never actually worked in this way.
If I take notes from a highlighted book or journal article, it is usually later in some process of a task such as reviewing material in preparation to write something myself. In thinking about how I work now, I propose that reading using a technology-supported environment encourages the process of creating meaningful notes earlier in this process. There is an efficiency when meaningful notes are made during the initial process of reading new content in comparison to trying to create the same context when trying to make sense of highlights or notes that simply move unprocessed words from one paper source to another after a delay.
Given the opportunities of reading on a digital device, I think we are at a point where highlighting may have value. Under these conditions, highlighting services as a placeholder for what should be a fairly immediate generation of meaningful notes. The placeholder has two benefits – it marks and saves a location in content that offers the benefit of context should a reader need to make use of the source material later. The marked material is also isolated through highlighting and this would seem to benefit the note-making process.
I suggest it is time to prepare secondary students for these opportunities. I also argue that educators abandon the paper is best assumption. If learning is understood as a process with initial exposure not isolated from studying and review, I cannot see how paper sources have an advantage. Learn to use a digital highlighting and annotation tool and work this tool into your knowledge generation and storage work flow.
Ahrens, S. (2017). How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking–for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers.
Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the public interest, 14(1), 4-58.
Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) and the focus on note-taking have generated many new applications. At this point, I think that significant advances in leveraging notes for personal productivity will come from AI, sharing, and a combination (AI identifying connections between personal notes and shared notes). I have written about AI applications in a previous post.
My emphasis here is on some note-sharing services I have explored. I will first identify some of the issues I think are important in committing to a service and then will present several sharing services. It is not feasible to cover the many options for sharing, but the services I describe should serve as a starting point for others and should offer some issues to consider.
Issues
1. What content are you interested in using as sources for your notes? My personal situation involves web content, pdfs, Kindle books, and ideas that pop into my head. Services may not cover all of these sources. For example, I am a retired academic and as a consequence continue to read and use journal articles (research studies) in guiding my thinking and writing. At this point, I read journal articles by downloading pdfs from my University library. I want to highlight and annotate these pdf and then connect the ideas I discover. A similar source for me is digital books (Kindle). The point – the services I list differ in which of these sources they easily integrate. Some services, surprisingly, don’t allow you to just generate a note from scratch but are focused on saving content for existing sources.
One side note – I have had interactions with developers related to sharing content from Kindle books (highlights). I wondered why you could view your own highlights within a service and yet not share these highlights. I thought it was about copyright concerns and they suggested this was true,. I suggested that if this was the case, they should at least allow notes taken to be shared.
2. Social sharing requires social connections. How do you get from your personal involvement with a service to finding others with relevant information? Are you expected to find people outside of the service and talk them into joining and then connecting with you? This is kind of a “bring your own group” approach. This may be what you want. It is not what I need. I retired from my university job five years or so ago. My interests have changed since that time and I no longer have colleagues interested in these new topics I can encourage to interact with me through a social service. Does a service have a way to identify others with interests I can describe who might be willing to share with me? This is presently a big issue for me.
3. Cost – what are you willing to pay for a sharing service? Are you willing to pay anything? Would you be willing to pay after an opportunity to try a service and perhaps develop the connections necessary to make a service effective for you?
Examples (organized by the length of time I have used)
I have used Diigo for a long time and pay $40 a year for the premium service. Most of my Diigo content is public so you can take a look. Diigo can be used as a browser extension to save highlights and notes from web pages. It can work with pdfs. Probably the most unique function allows the transfer of highlights and notes directly for the online storage of Kindle notes and highlights. A newer function allows the population of an outline by dragging content from annotations and notes.
Memex is under development and yes it is still a service I have used for the second most time. Memex uses a browser extension to allow highlighting and annotation of web content. It allows annotation of pdfs that are stored locally so what is available for social sharing are the highlights and notes only. Kindle annotations cannot be moved directly to Memex, but an intermediary such as Readwise can fill in this gap if important. This would require an additional paid subscription.
You can share individual notes or thematic collections (Spaces). The following image should the icon used to display a single note and the link that is then generated to share.
The notes from individual sources can be aggregated into Spaces. Think of a Space as a collection and this service’s alternative to a tag. A Space (collection) can be shared (see people icon in image indicating which Spaces have been declared public for sharing). When designating a Space for sharing the host differentiates whether those receiving the link to the Space can comment on existing resources or can have full access and add new resources.
Mem (and Mem X) are really more note storage platforms than bookmarking services. Mem includes a method for cutting and pasting content from other locations that is pretty handy (you don’t have to activate Mem when applying this technique so it transfers the “copied” content to the service automatically from other sources). I include Mem because it promotes the linkage of notes and it makes use of the AI suggestions to do this if you purchase the Mem X option.
The social component allows AI discovery of connections within “teams” or with identified colleagues. Mem makes a good example of the challenge of connecting. You don’t have to make use of the formal “TEAM” tier that Mem sells and which would make sense for organizations with groups working together. You can connect with other individuals, but how do you find them? This is the classic network problem new social platforms face. The platform can offer better opportunities than existing services, but the inferior existing service has existing connections among individuals that are more valuable than the capabilities of the service itself.
Mem X would be a great service if you had a way to bring a group to the service. A class of students or a series of classes taking the same course over a couple of years would be a perfect way to start a group with some common interests.
Mem is presently available at no cost so I still encourage those interested in note storage and the organization of stored notes (say an alternative to Obsidian) to investigate.
Glasp is a developing “social web highlighting (their description”) service. The focus on web content highlight and annotation makes the service more limited than some of the services I have included here. You highlight/annotate web content and add tags if you want. The features I like allows search of public content highlighted by others using tags. Tags can be used to find the public content stored by others and finding these resources allows you to find others to follow. There is no need (or requirement if you see this as a problem) in negotiating whether someone will be a collaborator so the issue of creating a personal social network is a lot easier.
I don’t see trying to rely on just one of these options. I pay for three and this would be unnecessary except I want to explore a couple of these services as they develop. If all are new to you, you should be able to try the free/trial options to see what you think.
There seems to be a great deal of interest in note-taking. I say this from the perspective of an academic who has been interested in note-taking since the 1970s. The present interest seems to come from two distinct directions. Technology has played a role in both areas of interest. First, there is the focus on personal knowledge management (PKM). This focus recognizes the role knowledge plays in many occupations and proposes that technology can be used to store and organize ideas one encounters so that these ideas can contribute in the future. Associated with this perspective is the idea that technology can be used to build a second brain offloading the less-than-ideal efforts of memory to a technology-enabled environment that can be consulted when ideas and insights generated earlier might be useful.
The second perspective comes from the educational perspective more familiar to me and questions whether notes and annotations related to learning experiences (listening to presentations and reading educational materials) are best processed via paper or screen. As a college learner, you likely took notes in class and highlighted and annotated your textbooks. Now that we carry laptops and tablets to class and read ebooks as an option to traditional textbooks, does it matter if we annotate and take notes on paper or screen?
Those seeking to guide note-taking given these options frequently reference existing research to offer advice. As someone who has reviewed the research in this general area for decades, I sometimes disagree with how the research findings are interpreted. By interpreted I mean that the results of studies are based on the data collected, but more importantly constrained by the methodologies that were used to generate the data and the topics that methodologies best address. Simple conclusions such as “notes taken in a notebook by hand are best” may accurately describe the result of a specific study but may be misleading if generalized to an applied setting that offers a different set of expectations and different options for behavior.
I have been trying to imagine how best to explain the complexities that are involved in translating the note research to applied settings. I have decided I can offer several questions that can be asked of the research and explain why the answers are likely to strongly influence how the results of research should be applied.
Will I be allowed to review my notes?
This may seem a silly question, but I include it because researchers may conduct research not allowing that the notes taken be reviewed because of the question the researchers are asking. Most of us take notes because we want to have something to review before we take an exam or before we take some other action requiring an assist to memory (e.g., what was I going to get at the store). Research on taking notes tends to be based on a theoretical model proposing two hypothetical benefits to taking notes. First, notes offer an external storage mechanism. We can review notes. This use is obvious. Second, taking notes may help us process information when the information is first encountered (while we listen or while we first read). Often called a generative function, the idea is that taking notes is an active way to pay attention or think about ideas as they are encountered and this focus or interpretation may not happen if note-taking was not involved.
In most of the applied settings in which we take notes both generative and external storage benefits are probably involved, but researchers find value in using a methodology that isolates the potential benefits of each benefit. Often, the focus is on differences in how notes might be taken to maximize the generative effect. For example, because most of us can type faster than we can write by hand, notes taken using a keyboard tend to be more complete. This capability to record more complete notes using a keyboard leads to a surprising consequence. If a study compares what is remembered/understood after taking notes using laptops versus paper notebooks and no review is allowed, many results show that retention is better when taking notes by hand. The logic used to explain these results suggests that learners must think more carefully when they can record less information (handwritten notes) and this selectivity results in a more active type of processing generating better understanding/retention.
Some use such results to conclude we should continue taking notes with pen and paper. Educators might not allow students to take notes using a laptop. However, does this really make sense? Most actual applications of note-taking involve the intent to have a quality set of notes to review/study. How often would we take notes and then discard the notes on the way out of the classroom assuming the benefit of the notes has been achieved?
So, when research is offered arguing taking notes on paper is superior to taking notes using a computer, review the methodology to see if participants were allowed to study the notes they took.
Who am I taking notes for?
There may be a better way to phrase this question, but my intent is to draw a distinction that involves who has decided what is important to know and retain. With PKM, notes are intended to serve a future purpose typically determined by the note taker. I take notes because I think the information may be useful in a future writing project. Others might take different notes on the same material because they foresee the notes serving a different purpose.
The research focused on student study behavior involves a different situation. In such situations, the instructor will create some assessment approach and the learner is preparing as best they can for this assessment. They may try to predict what should be emphasized, but they are in a situation in which complete representation of the ideas in the content presented is the best strategy. Hence research that demonstrates a given approach (keyboarding) allows a more complete record, might be the type of research that is of greatest value.
Can I control the pace of the input?
Taking notes from an audio or video presentation and from a static source such as a book or web page have several obvious differences. One that is particularly important is the pace of the input. A static source can be studied at whatever pace the reader applies. A source that changes requires that the viewer/listener keep up.
Human cognition has a built-in bottleneck that is important to recognize. Cognitive researchers refer to this bottleneck as short-term memory or working memory. Working memory has both capacity and duration limits. Translated this means each of us has the capacity to be aware of only so much at one time and what we are aware of will slip from awareness unless we concentrate our attention on this information. Both limitations come into play when the source for information is constantly changing. Activities such as thinking and note-taking both take time and require that we hold what we are thinking about and consume awareness in holding this information. Meanwhile, the input continues to roll along offering new information that is either ignored or substituted for the information that is presently being considered. Perhaps it is fair to conclude that taking notes from a static page and an ongoing lecture exert different demands and require different decisions. When you decide to record a note from a lecture you are risking missing something and this is not the case when you can return to a printed page when you want.
The difference between taking notes from a dynamic and a static source interact with other variables I have already mentioned. For example, if recording notes from a keyboard is easier than with pen and paper, the decision to use a keyboard probably has greater consequences when listening/watching a dynamic input.
Here is one related advantage of tech for note taking many do not realize exists. There are several apps that allow an input to be recorded while notes are being taken (see my review of SoundNote). Such apps link the notes to locations in the recorded sound. When reviewing such notes and encountering something that seems confusing, the linked audio can be replayed offering the note-taker a second chance. Other useful strategies can also be applied. For example, if you know while taking notes you do not understand or missed something you can simply enter a cue in your notes – perhaps ???? – and use this prompt to review the confusing audio at a later time.
Is annotation of the source allowed?
This question applies to text inputs and typically to K12 settings. Often learners in this setting are not allowed to annotate/highlight the content they are asked to read. You are not allowed to mark up your textbook. Magically when you get to college and purchase your textbooks, study tactics are allowed you did not practice in high school.
Again, technology changes this situation at all levels of education. eBooks can be annotated and highlighted because the ebook itself is not passed on from class to class. The eBook environment also allows a form of note-taking that is more flexible than that which can be added in the margins of a page. The amount of information that can be included in a note is greater and the note itself may contain elements such as web links that are not realistic additions in the margins.
Is there an activity assumed to happen between recording and application?
One final distinction between the types of note-taking that happen in experiments and the way notes can be used in applied situations concerns when and how frequently notes are reviewed after creation. Study skill experts sometimes recommend both multiple reviews of the notes taken and reviews designed to accomplish specific goals. For example, if a student reviews the notes taken soon after the initial exposure to the information that was presented, the student typically still has a memory for the context of the presentation and content not necessarily recorded in notes taken during class. Reviewing notes at this point in time allows an upgrade to the notes and the review itself positively impacts achievement when understanding must be demonstrated.
There are related opportunities when note use is understood to allow more than simple review. For example, there has been great interest in collaborative notes or expert notes as a way to enhance the notes taken by individuals. Efforts by those developing technology-enhanced approaches to PKM are even exploring the use of artificial intelligence to identify notes on similar concepts generated by others.
Conclusion
My goal in identifying the issues that appear above is to help readers understand that the note-taking and external knowledge representation field is more complicated and interesting than one might assume. It is easy to be misled if one seizes on the conclusions of single experiments if one does not carefully analyze the methodology that was used to generate the data leading to the conclusions of the researchers.
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