Learning Aloud

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)

Diigo

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. 

With the educational option of Diigo, I can create a group and share annotated bookmarks to that group. Google offers ways to find others with interests you may find relevant. I admit I have found these methods difficult to apply (try “search by sites”). 

MEMEX Go

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 X 

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

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.

My video Glasp tutorial

Conclusion

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. 

I have been reading content focused on the role technology can play in enhancing human productivity. Among the works I have reviewed is a 2012 book by Marc Prensky titled “Brain Gain”. Prensky is clearly a technology optimist and argues the need to counter all of the negativity one encounters from authors encouraging readers to focus on the negative (e.g., The Dumbest Generation; The Shallows; Alone Together). Prensky suggests that the negativity must be interpreted within a broader context (breadth of perspective) and with the understanding that it takes some time to learn how best to apply any new technology.

In an effort to apply these ideas myself and to update the application of these suggestions to a more recent controversy, I find myself thinking about the concerns of those who investigate the difference between reading from paper and the screen and the recommendation of these researchers for classroom practice. While there are a few researchers who push back and the mechanisms differentiating the two means of text processing have yet to be consistently identified, I think it fair to summarize the present position of “most” is that reading from a screen is inferior. I can generate all kinds of limitations I see in the existing research and assumptions associated with the findings, but such an analysis is not the focus of this post. I find Prensky’s recommendation that the breadth of perspective be considered useful and an interesting way to explain my general argument in support of digital reading.

My argument – A) Adults learn from reading from a device so educators should be preparing learners for this future and B) the type of learning adults do works better when reading with the benefit of technology. 

Most of the research I have reviewed compares screen and paper reading experiences within a very limited time frame and with a specific immediate dependent variable. In other words, learners read the same text either from paper or screen (or both in a within participants methodology) and then complete some assessment of understanding. Ignoring all uncontrolled variables that may be relevant, let’s just say that there is a benefit for reading from paper. 

Even in a school context past the early grade emphasis on learning to read, this is not really how reading text is applied. Learning to read morphs into reading to learn and learning implies the use of understanding at a later point in time. Various ways of describing this transition may be useful. One that is pretty straightforward is exposure versus study. Expanding the perspective on the use of newly acquired information really recognizes that exposure is not assumed to be the end of the process and students perhaps in interaction with the teacher and classmates will continue to process newly acquired information to assure understanding, retention, and application. A simple flow of processes might suggest – exposure, understanding, storage, retrieval, and processing for application. 

Paper vs. screen is not applied in evaluating which approach is better for this flow. Most adults engage while in the stage of exposure with additional processes such as highlighting and note-taking. Notes may be added in the margins or separately. Most K12 students are not allowed to highlight and generate marginalia even though adults commonly do this while reading from paper. If you have read other posts I have written, you probably realize where this is now going. Technology offers opportunities for storage, search, and exploration of ideas that cannot easily be duplicated with paper (even notebooks). Once you add in the life skills needed to accumulate personal content across long periods of time and to combine inputs from multiple sources sometimes needing to resolve inconsistencies, I hope you can see that the skills we are focusing on, certainly in k12 and perhaps even in higher education, ignore the power of the digital representation of what has been identified during exposure, the continued personalization of what has been identified as meaningful summarizes, the opportunity to store such personalizations and link them to personalized insights from other sources identified at other times, and the retrieval of individual insights and connections of insights when what has been learned can be useful. 

We may have yet to meet Prensky’s second goal (i.e., understand how best to apply new technological tools), but even our existing strategies (storage of information summaries and insights as notes) can easily be improved by taking digital notes while reading/listening and reviewing these notes (e.g., SoundNote for notes for listening). Refinements in how these digital tools will be used in education will require experience that will follow introduction to students and extended student use. My point – it is time to start exploring in classroom settings. 

My previous posts on digital notes.

Prensky, M. (2012). _Brain gain: Technology and the quest for digital wisdom_. St. Martin’s Press.