Taking notes in class - The digital way

Do you take notes while you are in class?  Do you use paper, a laptop, tablet, smartphone, or some combination of those?  Having access to my notes digitally and being able to search them has been invaluable to me, so I typically take notes using my computer.  I have also found it useful to take paper notes when I was in Math classes because there was just no way I could type all of those symbols and keep up with the instructor.

There are lots of services for you to type and take notes and here are the ones that I have found to be most useful.  These services are all free.

Google Docs

As I have mentioned in earlier blog posts, Google Docs and Google Drive have been invaluable. It is very easy to just create a folder for a course and quarter (like ENGL 101 Fall 2012) and then create documents to type class notes in.  You can look up these notes anywhere you have an internet connection and even offline if you set that up.  You can search through all of your notes to find specific topics and keywords.  This was helpful when studying for upcoming tests.  It was also helpful on test days, as I could open up the mobile app on my phone and read through my notes as I was riding the bus to class.

Google Drive also allows you to upload any type of files as well.  In addition to your notes for a class, you can upload PowerPoints, example files, images, or anything else from your instructor and have a central place (besides Canvas or Angel) to access all files and notes related to a particular class.

Here is a link to Google Drive/Docs.


Evernote

Evernote is another fantastic note taking tool.  It was designed specifically for taking notes and doesn't have multiple uses like Google Drive, but it does its specific job quite well.  You can provide a very helpful and short explanation on Evernote in Andy's blog post here.  If you like taking handwritten notes, you can use your smartphone, iPad, or Android tablet take pictures of your notes and import them right into Evernote.  That is all explained here in another of Andy's blog posts.

Here is Evernote's website.


Springpad

Springpad is a slightly different multi-use online tool.  Here is a short video to introduce you to it:


With Springpad, you can type your notes like in Evernote or Google Docs, but you can also add lots of other things, such as:

• Links to websites
• Or, add by items type:
• movie
• music
• book
• place
• recipe
• product
• wine
• tv show
• photo
• video
• file
• alarm
• check list
• event
• task
• contact

Springpad could serve as your notes, your to do list, contact list for your classmates you are working with on a project, list of bookmarks you want to save for your class, and much more.  In some ways, it is a more flexible tool than either Google Drive or Evernote.

Here is a link to Springpad's website.


How do you take notes in class?  Please post in the comments your go-to method for note taking in class.