3 Great Apps to Use for Taking Notes

By Kaitlin Hurtado on January 8, 2018

If you were lucky in your education before college, you were able to utilize technology when taking notes in your classes. However, many students are used to using the classic paper and pen method when it came to taking notes as many classes didn’t allow the use of laptops or tablets, or even cellphones while class was in session.

Unlike previous education levels, most college classes allow you to use technology in and out of class time to take notes in whatever way you want. You no longer have to worry about keeping the right notebook or a pen with you at all times when you can take your choice of technology to class and be set when it comes to taking notes. With technology, there are plenty of ways to take notes in class and here are a few apps to use that make taking notes in class that much easier.

via Pixabay.com

1. Quizlet 

Quizlet is often linked to studying for college students. You can easily make a set of notecards to aid you in studying and use Quizlet to arrange the notecards in practice tests and help you learn through various activities that the site arranges for you.

Instead of waiting until after you have taken notes or until the end of the class when you start cramming for an exam, skip a step and take your notes directly with Quizlet instead of your usual note-taking method. This method is more efficient if you are going studying for the class requires memorization of terms and key concepts.

You can take notes multiple ways. If your professors have slides that are clear and to the point – it might be easier to note the slide number or title put by your professor and key notes from each slide to make reviewing your notes easier than it would be to go through and look through your professor’s actual slides if they are nice enough to upload them. If taking notes slide-by-slide isn’t your style, try a more classic approach to making flashcards by jotting down key concepts and terms brought up in class and what your professor lectures about them.

2. Google Docs 

Using Google Docs is one of the easiest and most basic apps you can use when it comes to note-taking. You can access it on every technological device you have – a desktop, laptop, tablet, or your cellphone – which makes it easier for days when you have you’re leaving for class and find an empty battery on your laptop, but a fully charged tablet. As long as you have access to your Google account on any device, you can access your class notes on any device.

When it comes to taking notes technology, it may be much easier to type notes and keep up with your professor’s lecture than it would be if you were writing everything out by hand. You can go back to whatever you typed when your professor slows the pace of the lecture or even after class and make easy edits by deleting a few words, going to your textbook to fill in gaps, or completely cut and paste to organize your notes for later studying.

This often is not the case when it comes to taking notes by pen as making major edits like the one above can make the notes messy or disorganized, making you not want to refer back to them when it comes time to use them for later studying. Likewise, handwritten notes may be hard to read to begin with if you tend to have messy handwriting, which often becomes even messier if you are writing quickly in order to get down everything your professor is teaching.

3. Microsoft OneNote 

Much like Google Docs, OneNote allows you to take notes on any of your technological devices and access them as long as you have access to your Microsoft account. When using OneNote, you can utilize other aspects of Microsoft Office to aid your note-taking. You can type up notes in a classic outline on Microsoft Word or download your professor’s lecture sides and directly type into them through Microsoft PowerPoint.

OneNote provides you with a blank canvas for taking notes, as much of a blank canvas as you would have with a piece of paper. You can click anywhere and start drawing or typing at any point, making your notes as structured or unstructured as you wish.

One of the most appealing features of OneNote is its AudioSync feature, which allows users to record audio while taking notes at the same time. The typed notes are connected to the time at which they are typed, making it much easier to fill in notes typed in a haste or go back and review a certain moment in lecture that you just haven’t gotten down yet.

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