[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What are your thoughts on students replacing...
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Ask HN: What are your thoughts on students replacing their
notebooks with iPads?
I see a lot of college students in real life and on social media
spend $1000-2000 to buy expensive iPads and accessories to replace
the traditional boring but extremely cheap pen and paper. The
question is, does spending all this money lead to better grades? Or
do students buy these devices for school because of group pressure
and a desire to fit in?
Author : carlycue
Score : 17 points
Date : 2022-11-15 19:45 UTC (3 hours ago)
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| I have way too many old notebooks (school and work) that I have
| had to discard over the years. Or maybe some of them are still in
| a box somewhere, I have no idea.
|
| If I had all my notes on an iPad, organized an searchable, and
| uploadable to the cloud or transferred to a desktop machine, that
| would be a much better situation.
| ss48 wrote:
| It's a tool like anything else. If you use it right, it can allow
| you to do certain things better than you could on paper.
|
| I used an iPad to take notes on PDFs of lectures and textbooks
| when possible. Was incredibly helpful, and searching worked
| faster than flipping pages. The stylus is very accurate as as
| easy to write with as paper.
|
| Eventually found an app called Notability to takes notes that
| stayed in sync with audio recording of the lecture. Helped a ton
| concentrating on what was being spoken instead of trying to
| transcribe it, and revisiting areas of confusion.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Depends on the subject being studied. For anything with lots of
| words it's not useful and a simple laptop with a keyboard is
| worth it. Once you get into anything that's equation heavy having
| a tablet becomes well worth it.
|
| All of the apps on iOS look more polished and are usually vector
| based, so file size ends up being smaller and much more zoomable.
| But I think that the android alternative (software wise at least)
| are superior. Specifically this app (unaffiliated):
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.acadoid.le...
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Unless you're in a specific course the ability to jot notes with
| a pen is huge. Taking notes with a laptop during a lecture is a
| PITA.
| csdvrx wrote:
| Many laptops support pens either Wacom or EMR (Thinkpads,
| Surfaces, Dells...)
| Mixtape wrote:
| As a college senior myself, I think it's a bit of both. I think a
| lot of students buy iPads for the social appeal, and there's
| definitely something to be said about the impression that having
| a well-organized digital device gives that paper can't
| necessarily accomplish in things like interviews. That's not
| something that the STEM-brained among us care to admit, but
| fitting in socially can make or break your chances of advancement
| sometimes. I also see a lot of people cite genuine organizational
| advantages, which I can definitely understand. Being able to sort
| and access notes/assignments without having to scan them is a
| nice perk, as is being able to screenshot slides and record
| lectures (the ethics/efficacy of which are both up to your
| interpretation.) Color-coding is helpful to some people, as is
| being able to resize content on the page as needed. Then there's
| always the perk of having an internet-connected device on-hand
| for things like watching Zoom lectures, submitting assignments,
| etc. Being able to tackle all that on-the-go without relying
| entirely on your phone is nice.
|
| There are occasionally some arguments put forth about
| environmentalism and saving the trees, but given the
| environmental costs of battery production, I really don't see it
| as a good reason.
|
| As for my thoughts on the matter, I've honestly always thought
| that investing in a high-end iPad for college alone is (for me) a
| massive waste of money. My campus has plenty of computers
| available through their AD, so finding somewhere to get online is
| rarely an issue and is often easier than depending on our subpar
| mesh network. That's also how I access my textbooks, all of which
| are either online or (conveniently) located on my OneDrive. (Side
| note: I was also the idiot that didn't consider the combined
| weight of my gaming laptop and its massive charger when buying it
| at 18, so not having to carry it around campus on 95% of days
| does wonders for my back health.) Pen-and-paper has always worked
| fine for me, and the two little journals and pens that I carry
| around are plenty functional for my two in-person lectures. I
| have a huge problem with staying focused during lectures, so not
| having another device to yell at me or send me notifications in
| the middle of when I'm taking notes is a huge perk. If I really
| need to check an old set of slides or look something up, I have
| my phone for that. Finally, there's always the fact that not
| having another $1k+ device in my bag to break when I fall off of
| my skateboard, get stolen, etc. keeps a lot of pressure off of my
| day-to-day activities.
|
| That being said, it really comes down to how the individual
| student uses it. If it's the main hub for all of your notes,
| assignments, meetings, calendar, etc. and that's all you need to
| get through the day, all the more to you. $1k over the course of
| a 120 credit degree is around $8.33 for every 3 credit class, so
| as long as it's providing that value, it's well worth it. I take
| issue with people suggesting that it can revolutionize your
| classroom experience because I find that with education the
| system that works best is the one you know. If I were to try to
| make the switch, I know it would end up being another source of
| distraction more than anything else. I may not be the norm
| though, and that's perfectly fine.
| smoldesu wrote:
| In my last few years at high school, our district replaced a 1:1
| laptop policy with a 1:1 iPad policy. The results were mixed. For
| my creative electives like photography it was pretty handy, but
| the lack of keyboard made it a slog to use in writing classes.
| Then there were the engineering classes... for my Javascript and
| CAD electives the iPads were entirely useless, and the most it
| did in math class was run the Desmos website.
|
| IMO, people are too trigger-happy adding technology to schools.
| If any district wants to do a 1:1 iPad program, they should keep
| the iPads on-prem and use them as tools rather than stopgap
| replacements for books/paper. If schools want any chance of their
| students focusing on their work (especially in a K-12
| environment) they should treat computing as a situational
| solution.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Amazing that high schoolers are casually learning CAD and
| JavaScript!
| smoldesu wrote:
| My CAD class was awesome, run by an engineering dude in his
| 40s who's sole interest was spending as much district funding
| as possible. By the time I graduated, he had surrounded
| himself with a room of 20x Quadro/i7 machines and a half-
| dozen 3D printers. It makes me happy to imagine how much joy
| that brings him and his current students these days.
|
| Unfortunately the computer science class is no longer running
| at the school I attended. Between the low demand for the
| class and the difficulty of teaching programming on an iPad,
| they decided to pull the plug and focus on providing other
| STEM classes. Truly a tragedy since I look back on that class
| so fondly, but I guess the next generation of software
| developers will need to be a bit more self-motivated.
| seized wrote:
| I learned both in the late 90s. AutoCAD and think JavaScript,
| might have only been CSS. They were elective courses but
| still.
| shapefrog wrote:
| > expensive iPads - cheap pen and paper - all this money - group
| pressure and a desire to fit in
|
| The entire premise of your post is about your values and boils
| down to _money_ well _back in my day we spent all our money on
| booze and weed_.
|
| Are you jealous that _kidz these days have nice things?_
| ungawatkt wrote:
| A device with a keyboard was much much better for me than paper
| in college (netbook at the time, but same idea as a iPad), and
| would have also made high school better. I can type faster than I
| can write (including most math needed in engineering, pure math I
| never quite got there and still used paper); the notes were
| searchable, more legible, and sharable; and I could bring up
| class presentations closer to my face and annotate them directly,
| among other advantages.
|
| Folks can do what works for them, including pen and paper, but
| there are definitely advantages to the more tech route beyond
| just "fitting in", and compared to the cost of even a single
| semester at some schools the iPad cost is easy to justify. Sure,
| I can just browse the internet instead of doing work, but I can
| also do that on my phone and doodle in a paper notebook if I'm
| set on not paying attention, and people have been able to
| daydream forever.
|
| Edited for spelling and such
| [deleted]
| fm2606 wrote:
| I guess I'm too old school. Pen and paper don't require batteries
| or recharge (though possible more ink or lead, if a pencil
| instead of pen).
|
| I've read enough of "how to take notes" and every one of the
| articles said take quick notes, get gist of the topic down. Once
| out of class immediately re-write the notes. This helps with
| learning and comprehension. Now, if you have back-to-back classes
| this goes out the window.
|
| For me writing helps me remember. I think if I wanted to
| incorporate technology I would still use pen and paper. Then once
| I got home re-write my notes on what ever device was most
| appropriate. I feel like I would get double benefit of physically
| writing the notes and then reflecting on the lecture as I was
| typing them in.
|
| Again, my own take and to each their own.
|
| The best way to do anything is the way that works best for you!!!
| tianqi wrote:
| In the title it's iPad vs laptop, but in the text it's iPad vs
| pen and paper. That gets me lost. When it comes to iPad replacing
| laptop. I don't think it's a good thing. iPad is a consumer of
| information (playing apps, watching videos). In contrast, laptop
| is more of a producer (developing apps, writing, reading but not
| lying around). iPad replacing laptop means that students are
| shifting more towards consumption rather than production,.
| Tomte wrote:
| I'm almost certain that more art has been created on iPads than
| on all laptops combined. Procreate drawings alone might have
| done it.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I'm even more certain that Procreate was developed by
| somebody with a laptop.
| theredlancer wrote:
| Personally, I've used an Envy x360 as my laptop through my CS
| degree and with 1 more semester left, I can definitively say that
| having a touchscreen to take notes is much better than cheap pen
| and paper.
|
| The biggest bonus is having my notes in the cloud. I can
| reference my notes on my phone, laptop, personal desktop, and on
| other people's computers. I don't need my backpack and notebooks
| with me to check on a theorem, pseudocode algorithm from class,
| or how to format that SQL query.
|
| The second feature I use is being able to copy/paste and move
| notes around. If I run out of space (I like to keep my column
| width normalized), I can select an area of notes and move/resize,
| or transfer to an entirely different notebook. I can also copy
| text from a professor's slides or from a paper I'm researching,
| and then annotate that text in my notes.
|
| If I was just taking notes for an english or history class,
| similarly to @_aavaa_, I don't think it would be as useful. Since
| I'm taking Math and CS courses with equations, graphs, system
| diagrams, and code I want to annotate, it's been very worth it.
| However, for short daily notes or scratch work, I do keep a
| (paper) notebook in my backpack as there's no bootup time or
| login to scratch out some ideas.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| By the time I was finishing with school, in the US, laptops had
| become almost ubiquitous on campus. iPads aren't a big difference
| from that. If you're upset about people not using pen and paper,
| you've got to go back 20+ years to find when the shift actually
| happened.
| lnwlebjel wrote:
| I have a kid in 8th grade. The school issued iPads and all work
| is done and submitted on them. Internet hotspots are issued to
| kids who have no internet at home. My opinion is that the are a
| slightly net-negative for learning, given the time she takes
| fiddling with the various apps to get them to do what she needs
| them to do. I suspect that they greatly simplify grading (and
| thus the teacher's job), and are thus here to stay.
|
| Otherwise, I think it's an abomination. Using the same device for
| learning, entertainment, social media and other distractions just
| seems like a really bad idea. Maybe I don't give the kids credit
| - but this is my working hypothesis. I'd be glad to be wrong.
| [deleted]
| rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote:
| Students need a computer to write papers with, and notebooks to
| write notes with. iPad + Pencil just happens to be one
| lightweight device that combines the functionality of all the
| heavy stuff that they usually have to carry, but I don't think
| that effective studying and note-taking techniques have
| fundamentally changed.
| lesuorac wrote:
| I don't think it'll make you get better or worse grades.
|
| I started using the iPad 1 in high school to take notes and its
| so much nicer to just have 1 "notepad" to take notes for all of
| your classes than 6 different notepads. And god forbid we talk
| about textbooks as well. Only carrying basically an iPad and w/e
| paperback I needed for english is so nice.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| Having worked in a school in IT in my early career (10 years
| ago), where students were given laptops to use in the classroom,
| they are very useful. To be honest, I am quite surprised this
| question is still being asked in 2022.
|
| The world of learning is moving online, textbooks are being
| provided electronically, assignments are being submitted
| electronically, grades are provided electronically and even some
| learning tools used in the classroom are online. Heck there are
| schools that have been providing laptops for students for the
| last decade.
|
| I'd ask the question back to you, if you had to move back to pen
| and paper would it inhibit your ability to do your job? If so,
| then I think you know the answer.
| rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote:
| This doesn't really answer the question. Sure, the whole world
| could be moving online but just because it is doesn't mean that
| what makes learning effective is fundamentally changing, too.
| escapedmoose wrote:
| I used a Samsung tablet with a lightweight Bluetooth keyboard as
| my primary note-taking tool through college a decade ago. It
| worked great with Evernote at the time, allowing me to search for
| keywords and connections between topics, and to lighten the load
| I had to carry (which, as I was running between classes and two
| jobs from 7am-9pm each day, was critical for me). Maybe I didn't
| _need_ it, but it made my life much easier. This was during a
| time when carrying a tablet /laptop around labeled you a huge
| nerd.
|
| These days I work from home and can keep everything in my desk,
| but I still use Apple Notes for learning things because it's easy
| to switch between my phone, iPad and laptop to work on topics in
| whatever spare time I have, wherever I am. I get some good ideas
| in the line for grocery checkout haha
| cosmodisk wrote:
| It doesn't help at all. It's a gimmick and it used(maybe still
| is) to look cool when you sit with a tablet and look like you are
| learning something. In any decent class, you'd have hard time
| following the pace the professor sets, so quickly writing on
| paper is much better.
| gotorazor wrote:
| Unless you know and are practised at shorthand, most people
| type much much faster than they write by longhand --- even a
| fairly slow typist can do about 30-40 wpm vs writing is
| something like 30-40 characters per minute.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute
|
| I still personally prefer using a fountain pen, but I am maybe
| writing a few words as a mnemonic device.
| csdvrx wrote:
| In university, I didn't use pen and paper: I took textual notes
| in Mathematica or Rstudio (depending on the class) and drew
| graphs on the screen, using the Wacom mode of my thinkpad.
| Sometimes I just used xournal. I type faster than I write, and I
| had direct shortcuts for all the greek letters for the formulas
| (a b g etc)
|
| Separately, I had a Sony MP3 record and a digital camera to take
| high res pictures of the graphs drawn (I could have used Onenote
| to synchronize but it seemed overkill)
|
| That was extremely helpful: during the class, I could do some
| plots or run some experiments to clarify a concept and ask
| questions if something didn't make sense to me.
|
| And right after the class, I would gather the different parts to
| make my own notes and interpretations of the material presented.
|
| It was around 2017, and half the people were using similar
| setups. I mostly saw laptops, maybe because iPads with pens
| didn't exist yet. If they had, I would have certainly tried one!
| knaik94 wrote:
| One of the most helpful things for me was having a group of
| classmates who I joined a Google Doc with. It was the class I did
| best in that semester and it was a hard science class. It wasn't
| something that would work for every class, but it's something
| that wouldn't be possible without technology.
|
| High schools and middle schools have started giving out a laptop
| to every student in my district. The teachers use google
| classroom. I don't know if a $1500 device will be better than a
| $800 device for grades, but even a $600 used device will be much
| better than going pen and paper only. There is group pressure to
| get an apple product, but that also depends on the major. In bio
| or psychology classes there was some elitism when I was the only
| one who pulled out a thinkpad, some classmates associated thick
| to business and old. After I switched to CS the topic didn't come
| up again.
|
| Every single one of my classes in college provided power points,
| even math and cs. I didn't need to worry about copying down the
| PPT while the teacher was lecturing. I took one class with a
| teacher who refused to provide a copy early and I meaningfully
| struggled more to learn the material. I switched
| sections/teachers in order to make sure that never happened to me
| again.
|
| Depending on the comfort student, 2 in 1s have gotten good enough
| to where they could replace paper and pencil completely. The only
| time they would need to write on paper is for exams. I personally
| think iPads are a bad investment regardless of the student and
| their major. The software just isn't there, regardless of the
| model.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I think this is framing it wrong.
|
| First of all, you need _something_ to write papers on, which
| means you 're choosing between a laptop and a tablet with an add-
| on keyboard. "Traditional cheap pen and paper" doesn't work for
| writing papers.
|
| Second, once you've got a device, it makes much more sense to
| take notes on it rather than pen and paper, for most people,
| because it's easier to keep organized, to keep backed up, to
| share with other students, and never worry about losing. (Oh crap
| I brought my red notebook to Econ 201 instead of my blue
| notebook!)
|
| So it really comes down to, whether a laptop or tablet with
| keyboard is better. For some majors like CS you need a laptop
| full stop. For other majors the ability to draw diagrams with a
| pencil might be far more important. If you have a lot of digital
| textbooks then a tablet might be much more ergonomic to read them
| on than a laptop.
|
| Not to mention tablets are often easier to protect, less likely
| to break, easier to slip into a bag, weigh less, etc.
|
| But none of that has to do with "better grades" or "group
| pressure" or a "desire to fit in". It's entirely to do with a
| necessary tool, and which one meets your specific academic needs
| the best. You seem to be coming from an assumption that
| "expensive iPads and accessories" are _in addition to_ a
| laptop+paper, whereas for a lot of students it 's an _alternative
| to_.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| david_allison wrote:
| Drawing and typing significantly improved my grades. No sense of
| peer pressure. During university, half the time I used a Surface
| Pro 2, half the time I used a bluetooth keyboard connected to my
| Android phone.
|
| My studying workflow was based on digitized notes, so it saved
| time. I didn't need to worry about running out of space on the
| page and didn't need to worry about losing notes. It also
| provided timestamping for free.
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