[todd8]

I've taken notes in many math, engineering, and computer science classes, and after that I've attended many design meetings, schedule meetings, and brain storming sessions. In these settings typing doesn't work well and there is a distinct advantage in having good diagramming and math notation skills.

I find typing better for prose and prefer to program in a text editor.

I've had this discussion several times with the people running my children's schools (grade levels between 6 and 12). They have always been big on pushing technology in the schools and moving away from simple pen/pencil and paper.

My kids grew up with computers, iPads, and cell phones and so did virtually every other kid in these upper end schools. They didn't need to be pushed to use keyboards and didn't need instruction in typing, my daughter has typed faster than I can for years. But the schools, and many parents, were obsessed with the idea of being modern. I tried to explain that low resolution touch screens were inappropriate for taking math notes past simple fractions, but of course, I couldn't change their minds.

I felt the use of technology in the schools often hindered instruction and learning. Naturally, there is a place for it and I was happy that my senior was required to prepare her math projects using Sagemath and LaTeX.

[mindcrime]

In these settings typing doesn't work well and there is a distinct advantage in having good diagramming and math notation skills.

My take on this is that I can definitely type faster than I can write, so anytime I'm just trying to transcribe words then I want to be on a computer. But, I have never found any setup on the computer that lets me draw pictures as easily and well as I can draw with pencil and paper. Maybe now that touchscreens are so ubiquitous that would be different, especially using a stylus or something. But there's still the issue of having to stop and fire up a separate program or something, and possibly dealing with having to do extra work to merge your written docs and your diagrams into one document.

* I tried to explain that low resolution touch screens were inappropriate for taking math notes past simple fractions, but of course, I couldn't change their minds.*

Yeah, math is another interesting area. I've tried taking notes in math classes using OpenOffice Math in the past, but I never got to a point where it felt natural. Mostly I still prefer pencil/paper for taking math notes, or doing "scratch work".

[n0us]

I was the head tour guide at my boarding school and a question that came up with almost every single parent was "where are the smart boards?" They (falsly) assumed that adding technology to the learning experience in every possible place is a good thing. For one, the boards are very expensive and two, for something like an English class they add next to nothing. The only place I saw them being valuable was in the science classrooms but even then there was little if no advantage over using a projector and a whiteboard. Over use of tech can be distracting for the teachers as well, they had a pilot system of using tablet computers in conjunction with projectors in my Calc class and the professor just geeked out over all the colors he could show notes in and all the stuff he could do with it but it really distracted from the actual math. In college many of my classes forbade the use of laptops or highly discouraged it because a few students always just end up surfing Facebook which is distracting to everyone in the room. I found I always retained the information better when I took notes by hand.

[PeterisP]

Well, if low resolution touch screens are inappropriate for taking math notes past simple fractions, then surely that simply asks for a high resolution touch screens used with a stylus and some system that can convert my equation-like scribbles into proper LaTeX ?

I mean, the main point of digitized writing is not that it's easier and faster - sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't - but that in general you would need the end result to be in a proper, neat format that is useful for distribution, searching, analysis and automatical conversion for various needs; handwriting or pictures of handwriting can be useful for that only if/when it helps you to get to the final formatted non-handwriting end result faster than a keyboard and a mouse does.