Using an iPad to take notes in lectures?

[SidBala]

I used to use my iPad to take notes (using Penultimate). But for the next term, I am going back to pen and paper.

I am an engineering student and pretty much all my notes is just math and formulae - which are a pain to input into the iPad.

I am not sure about the voice recognition. It will have a high error rate. You will have to retype most of the transcribed notes.

Besides, I am not sure if the microphone on the iPad is sensitive enough to listen to your professor unless if you were sitting right at the front.

 

[Miss M.]

Great, thank you!

 

[imetazoa]

Hi,

I am in a search for a note-taking app that has voice recognition and handwriting recognition capabilities. I am a student and would like to record my professor's lectures while I take notes on an ipad. Then, transcribe automatically the lecture (here is why voice recognition) and convert my handwriting into regular text (handwriting recognition) so that I have both my professor's explanation and my notes in text. I would then like to transfer this file to my mac air and edit it in word so that I have my whole lecture (speech and my notes) as a *doc file.

Any suggestions on how I can do this or what app/applications to use? I do not own an ipad yet and am weighting the possibility of buying one if it meets my needs (above) or buying a Livescribe Echo instead and install myscript. And then probably install a voice recognition software.

Any thoughts?

Thank you!

I know this is an iPad thread... and I just bought one... but the HTC Flyer does most of those things, and I wish the iPad did as well. It allows you to record notes while simultaneously recording the lecture . I am currently planning on experimenting w/ a stylus and PenUltimate, but if the HTC Flyer had been out now, I would have taken a seriously look at it before buying the iPad.

 

[Augustus1309]

I think how well iPad can be use for taking notes in lectures depending on which app you are using. Some app, such as Student Pad is dedicated for it.

 

[Bigchris]

I use notes plus for school and for work meetings. I'm able to write on it, use the palm pad that's built into the app to rest my hand on and record the meeting or lecture too. It's a great app and the mic on the ipad2 works great.

 

[AC Rempt]

For another POV, I teach, and recently during a bout of tendinitis, I relied on my iPad to take notes during class. I teach creative writing and during workshops, I record student feedback, usually by hand. Using Pages on the iPad (and the virtual keyboard) made my job a lot easier.

 

[realjd]

This may not be a popular answer given the audience of the forum, but I think the iPad is not the right choice if you need to take notes. I'd highly recommend a Windows tablet PC with Microsoft OneNote. I've used various tablet PCs for the past 10 years and they're extremely powerful for note taking. OneNote gives you basically blank notebook paper and you can write, draw, annotate, and do anything else you could with a paper notebook. It makes your notes and handwriting searchable, can do handwriting recognition (if you want - it's usually not necessary), and can easily copy screen grabs into your notes using the stylus. It's also great being able to take a PDF file or powerpoint slides, annotate them, and then stick them into a tab under your OneNote notebook.

I use a Dell Latitude XT. Most Windows tablets have the benefit of full laptops that the screen rotates and folds over. This means you can use it like a regular laptop with a keyboard or as a tablet.

These are great tools, but I don't see them as direct competition to the iPad and the new generation of touchscreen tablets. Since they run Windows, they're no where near as user friendly for surfing the net by touch, and there aren't many touch-compatible programs for Windows. I find myself using my tablet PC in tablet mode for taking notes and using Photoshop, but in regular laptop mode for everything else.

 

[seble]

This is one of the reasons why I think it's paramount for Apple to add handwriting recognition to the iPad. Taking notes in a class or a meeting is just so much more natural this way.

Join my Facebook group to ask Apple to do just that!

FB: Apple, Add Handwriting Recognition to the iPad

Bit late I know, but there actually is, have you tried adding the Chinese, handwriting keyboard? When you draw out English language characters, it recognises them, and they can be added.

 

[NeedMoreVideo]

Hi,

I am in a search for a note-taking app that has voice recognition and handwriting recognition capabilities. I am a student and would like to record my professor's lectures while I take notes on an ipad. Then, transcribe automatically the lecture (here is why voice recognition) and convert my handwriting into regular text (handwriting recognition) so that I have both my professor's explanation and my notes in text. I would then like to transfer this file to my mac air and edit it in word so that I have my whole lecture (speech and my notes) as a *doc file.

I take engineering notes daily in a business environment on my iPad, and I'm also an avid user of Dragon Dictate.

Yu can use SmartNote to handle the handwriting-ish recognition. It has an engine built in that gives Palm OS style writing abilities.

Voice recognition will be much harder. While the iPad has (barely) enough CPU power to run a speech to text engine, there is no way to build a good enough microphone for speech recognition from the distances usually encountered in a classroom into such a small form factor.

Most speech recogniton engines are utterly confused by echos, meaning you either need to be < 2 feet from the speaker's mouth or you need an array microphone. I have yet to see an array microphone that is small enough to be portable.

The smallest one I've ever seen is this one : http://www.acousticmagic.com/ . I have the "1" version. It is slightly wider/heaver then a macbook pro 17" and its about 4x as thick. It also requires a power cord.

I think a better solution (right now anyways) is a small, cheap digital voice recorder and the permission of your instructor to put the recorder on the podium where the lectures are given from. Turn it on before class, take it after class and use a computer based .wav file to speech later on.

 

[BlindMellon]

Notes Plus. Let's you type or write/draw with a stylus.

 

[bocomo]

I type way faster with a chicklet style keyboard then I do with a (big key keyboard... I don't know what its call) It's all a matter of getting used to it

same here

i don't understand the problem some have with chicklet style keyboards

 

[JamDonut]

I bought an iPad 2 primarily for uni to take notes. I have a 13 MB and wanted to upgrade to a decent MBP but have decided to get an iMac and iPad 2 instead! theres a fantastic app called iA writer, its 0.59p ($0.99) and it adds a few 'buttons' to the top of the virtual keyboard like word bac/forward and colon, some of the more common keys that are a pain to get to when taking quick notes. You can copy everything over to pages for when you want to put it all onto your MBP/iMac or just keep them all on the iPad. It's a hell of a lot lighter to carry round campus, snugly fits in your bag, sits great on the table in the lecture halls with a smart cover. Best decision i ever made!

 

[CrockettGTO]

I currently use a combination of three applications to sync, tag, capture and streamline all of my note taking at work and in lectures
1. Evernote-This is a must have. I have it installed on all my mobile devices, my MBA, MB and PC with a single username and login it shares updates and notes to all devices
2. Noteshelf-Handwriting application for the iPad-has Evernote integration (as well as many others, iPhoto, PDF, EMAIL, Dropbox)
3. Genius Scan+ Allows me to take photos of whiteboard/chalkboard illustrations from my iPhone and also offers one touch integration to send images to Evernote, even allows you to tag, select specific Evernote notebooks and name the file prior to export.
My only "ask" is that Noteshelf developer also integrate Text Input option with keyboard in addition to the handwriting.
For this reason I may give NoteTaker HD a try (and use the custom Evernote Email address to email notes from NT HD to the Evernote environment.

 

[Gutwrench]

Note Taker HD

 

[Franky4]

iPad note taking

I would recommend Scribable (scribableapp.com). It let's you write contiunous handwritten notes and gives you all the flexibility you need.

 

[kooskoos1814]

I use my iPad with a stylus and Notability for handwritten notes and PDF annotations, it's perfect and very precise, I can take notes almost as fast as with a pen and a sheet of paper, and you can quickly edit or change colors of your text. A very useful thing is that it can record what the person is saying at the same time, nice to work on your notes when you're back home.

iAWriter is amazing for plain text, it syncs with Dropbox and can export to Pages (both iPad and OS X version) if I need some formating tool (which is quite rare).

I doesn't completely remplace pen and paper but it works quite nice.

 

[jojoba]

I work in academia and use my iPad extensively for note taking, with a LogiTech keyboard that doubles as a case as well as a stylus. For my purposes, it works brilliant. The opportunity to use stylus input, the ease with which I can draw figures, and the long battery life makes it superior to me for this particular task compared to my MBA. I primarily use Circus Ponies Notebook and Notability. 7Notes HD is also a good app.

 

[NTeggerdine]

Hey, I'm looking to make the switch to a Mac, currently in a year internship, returning to University next year to finish my course. I've got my eyes on the 13" MacBook Pro - battery life, portability, power etc. Just wondering if anyone has any experience of taking notes/using an iPad in a lecture. Could it be the way forward?

Cheers

Jonno

I am a family rep at a private boarding school and I sit through seminars a few times a month. I use the app notability and I can write with a stylis pen or type my notes out and record the lecture going on. Today I was in a seminar and I was 9 rows back and the seminar recorded perfectly.

 

[whynotgotovegas]

I took mine to a lecture last night. I used the built in memos app. At the end, I emailed the notes to myself. I was not happy with the keyboard when trying to keep up with a lecture. I was not happy with the inability to draw quick diagrams and make them part of my notes. I don't have evernote on my iPad but I'll download it and give it a try at next week's lecture. When typing something like a forum or blog post, I find the keyboard on the iPad in landscape mode to be more than adequate. When trying to keep up with a fast paced lecture, I found it to be adequate but frustrating at times.

I really liked walking into the classroom with something that was no thicker than a notepad. I liked being able to get on the internet using the campus wide wifi. The only frustrating part was the inability to keep up with the lecture at times. I hope somebody offers a 3rd party app aimed at taking notes quickly including diagrams and equations. I'll be all over it.

I'm glad you're one of the people that has tried it before posting...lol thank god!! Anyway, I would recommend buying the apple wireless keyboard and pairing it to the iPad. I have tried that (mind you, it was in a high school class...but still, it worked) and I loved it. The iPad is so small and thin, plus I have angry birds with me . Another plus is the fact that it syncs over pages with my iPhone, and I can study notes while waiting for friends or things like that on the go. Hope I helped!

 

[Musician]

Lecture Notes app is the best replacement for pen and paper during lectures.

 

[rowspaxe]

Try "Note Taker HD"
It's the best note taking app I ever use. It automatically shrinks your big hand writings to fit them in lines.

try a real productivity tablet instead of a 10 inch phone.

 

[Dave245]

If it's just notes you want to write, what about a keyboard cover? it's been suggested to me instead of getting a MBA, i've been looking at a few of them on Ebay and they don't look that bad. You can get detachable ones, that clip on and off, it might work for taking notes in lectures. I'm also a university student and i currently use an iPad 3 for note taking, but its getting slow

 

[Saturn1217]

I'm surprised at the number of people here that have gotten notetaking on the iPad to work for them. That was my dream when getting the iPad air. But alas. I find the tech slows me down and/or distracts others when I don't want it to.

I do like goodnotes best for handwriting on the iPad and I have a logitech keyboard cover for typing but for taking notes in meetings or lectures I generally resort to pen and paper because it is faster. As a compromize I try to scan (with my phone) all of my handwritten notes that I find important. Which is nice because then I can still have everything be digital. Haven't found any handwriting recognition I trust with my truly abysmal handwriting though...

 

[bpeeps]

Pages auto saves every time you make a change. There isn't even a save option.

You said just what I came here to save. Most of Apple's mobile typing apps are like this, it just natively saves the update as you go.

 

[chrfr]

You said just what I came here to save. Most of Apple's mobile typing apps are like this, it just natively saves the update as you go.

You're all responding to an over 4 year old thread revived by a spammer.