Ever since my laptop battery died in Kyoto (currently, it runs only via wire) back around October, I’ve been constantly musing about purchasing a new computer. A post is forthcoming on the issue. However, in my ponderings, I have thought about many of the motivations and consequences of said purchase. One of which happens to be its benefits in the classroom.

Aside:

I will now unabashedly plug a panel (not that I haven’t already) that I’ll be moderating in March at SXSW:

“Blackboards or Backchannels: (Social) Technology in the Classroom of Tomorrow”
Five students will come together to discuss technology in the classroom and the implications of technology to help improve (or utterly destroy) the social elements of education.

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One of the debates I’ve had over the past year in writing for this blog concerns the essence of note taking. I’ve written in the past about my aversion toward liveblogging and my affinity for accurate notes, however meticulous. Over the past few years, I’ve come to terms with the fact that my notes, when typed or written, culminate in roughly verbatim reproductions. I grasp at words. I ingest language and digest meaning.

My realization: pencil on paper no longer does the trick. As minute as my script has become, this semester I churn out two to three full-length, handwritten pages per class period. Yet I still snatch at my teachers’ dictations, trying to capture the entirety of every phrase. The readability of my notes thence suffers, as my pen dances from left margin to right, without lifting from the page even to spare the spaces between syllables, while I battle between lecture transcription and lecture absorption.

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