Subject: RE: Laptop v. Hand-Written Notes
From: David Cole <[email-masked]>
To: Milton Regan <[email-masked]>, Law Faculty and Visitors <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2014 15:31:53 +0000

I am breaking my strong presumption against reply all to double down on Mitt's note.  As many of you know, I have banned laptops for over a decade, and I have found it improves classroom discussion and engenders very little complaint from the students.  But my principal concern was the interference/distraction factor of the internet (this article says studies find students have something other than course-related material up on their screen about 40 percent of the time).

But this report shows that even without any internet distractions, people learn concepts much less effectively when taking notes by laptop than when taking notes by hand.  They mindlessly record, practically verbatim, rather than doing the work of identifying the important concepts that hand-writing requires (unless you have been to stenography school, of course).

So well worth reading, and worth distributing to the students -- OFF LINE!!

Thanks, David
________________________________
From: Milton Regan
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2014 11:11 AM
To: Law Faculty and Visitors
Subject: Laptop v. Hand-Written Notes

Hi, everyone.  This may be worth sharing with your students at the beginning of the new academic year:

http://www.vox.com/2014/6/4/5776804/note-taking-by-hand-versus-laptop

Best,
Mitt

Mitt Regan
McDevitt Professor of Jurisprudence
Co-Director, Center for the Study of the Legal Profession
Georgetown Law Center
600 New Jersey Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001-2075
Phone: 202-662-9414
Fax: 202-662-9408