I am fascinated by this as well. I am a culinary instructor and my students do all of the above. I am old school if you will. I allow the use of technology during lecture/demo, but all students must handwrite their daily production notes. I find that the students who write notes during lecture as opposed to using technolgy tend to have higher grades regardless of age.
Hi Michelle,
This is an important point about helping students acquire new content. They need to be able to relate to the material and integrate it into their memory bank in such a way that they can retrieve it as needed.
Gary
Utilizing technology to aid in memory recall can be effective. However, it is important to take in to consideration the students best method of learning and not just rely on the technology to take notes for the individual since this in my opinion defeats the purpose of using technology. We are supposed to use technology to help us become better, more effective; not lazy.
Hi Jason,
You make a good point about how to be engaged as a student. By reducing the time spent in writing and increasing the time spent in discussion the internalizing of the course content is enhanced. More instructors need to follow the model.
Gary
On another note, I would personally appreciate a teacher who understood that I am able to utilize the time spent in the classroom to gather as much information as possible, to engage in the lecture and discussion, and make the most of the time I have in front of the expert. I use time outside of class to digest the information and internalize it. The time-sensitive nature of class and the ineffectiveness of straight lecture is then eased and made more efficient for taking advantage of the services that are only able during class time. I will study later! Teachers have made available their notes in copy form for years, and I spent my time engaging my mind rather than my hand in class because of this.
It's lazy! I for one would not allow it...I have a strict policy on cell phones and other electronic gizmos: I don't want to hear it, and I don't want to see it...other than that, have fun!! But seriously, your student is "taking a picture" of the notes and fooling themself that they will read/study it later. Ain't going to happen.
When they take a picture of the notes how do you know that thay are not comprosieing the info, and selling it to a nother student. Also are they taking notes on the phone or just texting on a nother screen. we have a no phone policly hear. We have caught students texing through there pocket. So the use of technology by the younger students in class can be good or bad.
I would imagine quite ineffective. Writing and sounding out words and concepts is the 2400-year tried-and-true method for knowledge absorption. Pictures, sound bytes, and shorthand are lazy attempts to shortcut learning.
There are no shortcuts.
