Where is our OneNote alternative?

[monkeybrain20122]

mastablasta, I suppose you got by the same way that they did when using papyrus and parchment. You made the best us of the technology that was both available and familiar to you. Likely, you would have complained if they would have handed you some large rolls of material and a quill type pen....

Sometimes I can't tell the difference of "making best use of" and abusing technology, at least for some people.

[mastablasta]

I still hope someone will create something to meet these desires, or pick up the development of Basket Notepad. My hopes are diminished, but, again, I'm willing to pay for such a product!

perhaps wps/kingsoft office will make something similar. or maybe caligra suite will have it, who knows....

i have one note at work and still haven't figured it out.

i have post it notes all over my desk and i throw them away. maybe i could use it instead of those. i could try and see if it helps.

but seriously i haven't had much use in specific note taking applicaitons. maybe i am also not in that type of work...

for studies i would hate to type anything. i much rather listened, made a note here and there. i mean it's all in the books what they lecture here. maybe if i had books on e reader and then could do notes in that... that would be helpfull. but separate notes application... i still don't get it.

[djpemberton]

I have never used such an application for taking notes during a lecture either (I am in language school presently and have two other bachelor degrees--one humanities-related and the other science-related), but I do use one to organize research which uses various sources and media. I typically jot ideas and questions in a paper notepad, or I gather notes and quotes from Kindle or other study software. Then, I gather the most relevant of these into a software like Basket. The organizational and accessability value of this for me is immeasurable. I don't expect everyone to understand the need immediately. I didn't understand how it would help me until I had a good use for it (I also had looked at One Note in the past and was bewildered.). However, as I begin research projects of my own, I have found that such software helps tremendously. Let's not assume that everyone should think the same, or have the same application needs. I imagine that if a really good Linux application were created for this that many would find uses for one that they didn't perceive before. I agree, though, that any One Note alternative needs to be more accessible, as the relevance of One Note (and Basket) aren't perceived immediately enough.

[Bucky Ball]

For lectures I took notes with pen and paper then typed them up later (that day or before the next lecture). Great for retaining the information and learning.

I've used Zotero throughout my degree. It could be adapted, but it would take a different mind-set and note-taking would be severely limiting. Stick to what works best and for the moment that doesn't seem to be anything Linux. ;(

[bushell-br]

The issue for me, and many of my classmates, is that the computer offers efficiency--and OneNote even more so. I used to take notes with a pen and paper when I was in my first year of university and this worked fine in chemistry and biology and so on--although I had to write frantically. But as classes got tougher and more and more material was presented in lecture it got to the point where the only way to keep pace with the prof and write down everything was to type. I can type far faster than I can handwrite.

But then things changed again, and profs started simply putting up powerpoint slides with images or condensed abbreviated sentences and pretty soon it became necessary to write directly on the powerpoint file to keep track of things. Simply opening a word document and attempting to write down what you felt were the key points in a lecture became impossible because you wouldn't know which diagram or image or particular slide your notes correlated with. Granted you could write down the slide number, but that requires opening the powerpoint on your laptop and then switching back and forth between the powerpoint window and your word document to keep track. That would be fine, but the professors don't give you time for that, they just talk as quickly as if they're having a jolly conversation--and you scramble to keep up.

One note sort of fixes this problem by allowing you to put the powerpoint slides and word document "writing area" side by side in the same document, so you can just type in along side the slides and circle important things and so on. Now yes I realize that you could achieve this by copying and pasting slides into a blank word document and then use text boxes beside the slides to get the same effect, but that would be very time consuming and once again--there is no time to do that during lecture. Why not before lecture? Most profs do not post their lectures for student download until the morning of the class, usually about 30 minutes before class. That could vary from school to school for sure, but still--the brute force approach of grafting a powerpoint into a word document is not ideal. With OneNote you simply open up powerpoint, hit print, and then print the powerpoint presentation into onenote where it is ready to be worked with. Voila. Takes about 15 seconds.

Maybe it seems like i'm complaining and using OneNote to make school as easy as possible, but consider this: our last exam consisted of 65 lecture hours and 4000 powerpoint slides. We learned that material in the space of 5 weeks while also taking 5 other courses that were slightly less intense. So in that kind of scenario a program like OneNote is a real boon to productivity. At second best is directly annotating the powerpoint slides themselves. Neither of these things are available in Linux to the same degree and it's a shame because it leaves me and others like me chained to microsoft

[tgalati4]

Take a lecture given in Powerpoint slides so you can get a job creating Powerpoint slides. Yes, in this Use Case, OneNote is the tool to use. We use to call it Viewgraph Engineering. I've never seen a slide fail. There is a reason that education and corporations are chained to Microsoft. It is by design.

[lykwydchykyn]

I'm suddenly feeling very grateful that I went to college before Powerpoint was a thing.

[monkeybrain20122]

The issue for me, and many of my classmates, is that the computer offers efficiency--and OneNote even more so. I used to take notes with a pen and paper when I was in my first year of university and this worked fine in chemistry and biology and so on--although I had to write frantically. But as classes got tougher and more and more material was presented in lecture it got to the point where the only way to keep pace with the prof and write down everything was to type. I can type far faster than I can handwrite.

How is this possible? The prof writes BY HAND on the backboard plus lecturing, no? I should add that writing on the blackboard vertically is a lot more tiring than writing on a note pad horizontally because of gravity, so the prof would likely slow down after a while. I don't believe that you can only keep up with typing. Besides, in Chemistry at least there are many formulas, equations and diagrams, I can't see how it would be "faster" by typing than using pen and paper.

The apparent "slowness" of writing most likely comes from the fact that most people do tend to pause and think when they write, but not necessary when they type because to be fast in typing you have to train yourself to do it mechanically. In this case I would think that "speed" in note taking (even if it is true) may actually work against the goal of learning.

But then things changed again, and profs started simply putting up powerpoint slides with images or condensed abbreviated sentences and pretty soon it became necessary to write directly on the powerpoint file to keep track of things. Simply opening a word document and attempting to write down what you felt were the key points in a lecture became impossible because you wouldn't know which diagram or image or particular slide your notes correlated with. Granted you could write down the slide number, but that requires opening the powerpoint on your laptop and then switching back and forth between the powerpoint window and your word document to keep track. That would be fine, but the professors don't give you time for that, they just talk as quickly as if they're having a jolly conversation--and you scramble to keep up.

Only bad professors would use powerpoint for lecturing, at least in disciplines that require working out details like physics, chemistry and mathematics. Slide presentations are ok for seminars and short lectures where only main points are conveyed and the audience is not expected to interrupt the flow by asking questions very often, but not for undergraduate lectures. It is an abuse of technology really.

[bushell-br]

No, not necessarily bad professors. But this is (in my case) a different discipline. The profs have always used powerpoints for every class, from day one, in my university career. About the only classes that did not were math and physics due to their equation based nature. But particularily in physiology, pharmacology, and now in medicine, the profs use powerpoint slides filled with bullet-point lists of text and the occasional diagrams or illustrations. A typical lecture for me lasts 50 minutes, has 60 to 80 slides, and is 75% text.

[mastablasta]

No, not necessarily bad professors. But this is (in my case) a different discipline. The profs have always used powerpoints for every class, from day one, in my university career. About the only classes that did not were math and physics due to their equation based nature. But particularily in physiology, pharmacology, and now in medicine, the profs use powerpoint slides filled with bullet-point lists of text and the occasional diagrams or illustrations. A typical lecture for me lasts 50 minutes, has 60 to 80 slides, and is 75% text.

that is true, they do use it everywhere (almost). and if you ask me your lectures really seem like an abuse of presentation tools. but it is also true that those bullet points can be found in books. which is why i didn't really write them all down but preferred to sit and listen and try to understand what they are saying. only writing down what i thought was interesting. i had colleagues writing down every word and ofcurse you get tired if you "study" like that. the aim is not to write it all down what is already written in books anyway. the aim of study is to think and to question the ideas, theories and even facts being thrown at you by the prof.

when i prepared for exams i would read the books, underlining the important stuff and memorizing it if necessary.

but the thing is i didn't need so many notes. i did took them a fair amoung. but nothing in the volume of some of my colleagues who really thought they have to write down "everything". they are still lost without their notes. while i can still remember certain theories, ideas, facs. not only that i also understand them, their background etc.

and oyu know what? best lectures i was on had no or very little bullet points or even a powerpoint presentation.