Ever since laptops were created, debates have raged among students and teachers, as to the efficacy of note-taking using laptops, vis-à-vis writing down notes. Some say that typing of notes brings about superior organizations of the work, not forgetting the speed that typing allows them when compared to writing notes. Those who advocate for note writing hold on their preferred method of note-taking, offering improved learning as a benefit of handwriting notes. According to Markham (2019), “brain regions associated with learning are more active when people completed a task by hand, as opposed to on a keyboard.” There is no doubt that technology has improved how we live our lives, making life easier and more convenient (Mueller, & Oppenheimer, 2014). It is not uncommon to see a sea of laptops sprawled on desktops, as students take notes during a lecture. But lectures are more than just a note-taking exercise. Lectures also involve learning and class engagement that is supposed to happen, and although laptops can make note-taking easier, and help the students in case they need to do fast research in the lecture room, but there are chances that this exercise hinders their understanding of the lecture. Writing notes by hand improves a student’s power of understanding, helping them consider the information they are listening to keenly.

Research has shown that when students take nets by hand, they can remember the course materials better than when they type it on the computer. This increased memory cuts across different studies. When taking notes in a lecture, typing makes you writer verbatim note-taking when compared to handwriting the notes. The student just writes down what the lecturer says, word for word. This kind of writing is associated with shallow cognitive processing of the material being taught in class. When the student writes down the notes by hand, there is in-depth processing of the materials involved since the students able to give more consideration to the parts of the materials to write down. Having this knowledge can however improve typing of notes, but only if the student can successfully summaries the materials and rephrase it as they type, instead of verbatim transcribing of what the lecturer is saying (Doubek, 2016).

When you chose to type your notes, you chose to primarily use an electronic device for the class. This means that you have access to a lot of tools that can help you in the taking of notes. This access can be beneficial or detrimental to your leaning process. The advantage that this access to tools and applications like social media application has is that it allows you to look up things that the lecturer says that may be unclear. It also allows you to access and review supplementary materials for your class. The disadvantage of this is that you have access to a lot of distractions. As Markham (2019), provides, it can be hard to concentrate on the lecturer when you have your laptop there with access to Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube which entices you to and takes your concentration away from the lecture. This can be very detrimental to a student’s learning. Multitasking on the laptop during lectures has been proven to be detrimental to a student’s learning. This problem of laptops and the access it gives you being a distraction can be mitigated by measures like blocking access to programs that will distract you in class, but this does not always work, so the best solution is to take your notes by hand. The problem of distraction needs a student’s selfsameness and reflective thinking since distractions can also be present even when you are taking notes by hand, but having the laptop with you in class makes it easier for the distractions to hamper your learning process (Mueller, & Oppenheimer, 2014).

From my own experience, I have seen the impact that having your apt on in class can have. Handwriting notes can help avoid the disruptions that come with using a laptop, disruptions that come in the form of internet use, encaging and other online distractions. Most of the course materials that we receive are in the form of PDF files, including textbooks which we may refer to while in class. Using a laptop for me thus became unavoidable. I, however, put my laptop in airplane mode to ensure that I do not get tempted to engage with these distractions. Previously having a laptop with me would be an excuse for me to access sites like YouTube, and I would not learn much form that class. I would also find myself checking my message in class, and it was a great disservice to myself as I would not learn anything during that class as May Cindi observes. Having my laptop on airplane mode allows me to concentrate on the class and the lecturer, and only use it to reference course materials when needed. Studies have shown the negative effects of students accessing the internet while in class. Mueller and Oppenheimer, (2014), observe that “In most typical college settings, however, internet access is available, and evidence suggests that when college students use laptops, they spend 40% of class time using applications unrelated to coursework, are more likely to fall off task, and are less satisfied with their education.” This shows that handwritten notes are more productive for the student as opposed to typing notes to avoid the disruptions that come with laptop use and internet access in class (Mueller, & Oppenheimer, 2014).

Deutsch (2017), observes that handwriting helps in brain development, which offers a lot of benefits to the student. She states that writing essays, reports, novels, and letters or class notes by hand connects us with the words and our brain focuses on the words, helping us understand them and learn from them. I have this experience with my essay writing. I find that ideas flow much better when I am writing the essay on paper as opposed to typing it on my laptop. This to me is an indication of wiring by hand engaging the brain more than typing does. Long handwriting is good for memory improvement and exercising the brain, which makes it good for students who are in class to learn, and not simply take notes. It activates the brain and allows you to logically analyze the material that you are writing, leading to a better understanding of the material being taught. For purposes of improving brain function and memory, students should prefer longhand to type their notes (Deutsch, 2017).

There are those who would prefer typing their notes because of the convenience it offers them. A student may not feel comfortable writing their notes by hand as they find it too slow and tedious or sometimes they are not familiar with the course material so they do a transcription of the notes for future reference. Such cases offer typing motes as a preferable option. The student may also want to go over the material after the lecture so that they can learn it. It may be for homework or exam purposes, which makes it beneficial o type the notes verbatim as opposed to writing a paraphrased version of the lecturer’s notes (Cindi, 2014). Typing your notes offers advantages that range from the ease of fixing and editing the notes, easier to search through, more reliability when they are backed up properly, and they are also easier to share. All these benefits need to be weighed against the experience of the class that you lose when typing notes, as well as the processing of the material as you write the notes. Different note-taking methods work for different people given unique scenarios, based on nature if the material that the student needs to learn as well as how they plan to use their notes at a later time (Mueller, & Oppenheimer, 2014).

Laptop use in classrooms as a medium for typing notes does more harm than good when it comes to the comprehension of the materials being taught in class. Laptop use can negatively affect the performance of the student when it comes to educational assessment. Typing notes allows you to capture a larger volume of notes, which are more accurate when compared to handwritten notes, which can be beneficial for revision purposes, but the process of typing notes is an indiscriminate and mindless transcription of content. For improved educational outcomes, tying notes serves the opposite effect, meaning handwritten notes are better since the process of writing the notes improves the student’s comprehension of the material as well as their power of understanding