Note Taking Devices for Students?

Gavin Scott asks: "I'm looking for solutions for a college student who needs an inexpensive mechanism for note taking in class. She suffers from a condition that makes writing notes out by hand slow and painful. One of the small sexy sub-notebook computers would be ideal, but at $1,500-$2,500 these are completely out of reach budget-wise. She has a perfectly good desktop system at home, so something that simply allowed typing in notes that could then be transferred to the PC would be ideal. I've considered things like a Palm-type device with an external keyboard, but I'm interested in knowing what other options people might suggest. Or any opinions on what kind of lightweight almost-laptop devices are good in, say, the sub-$500 range?"

Talk to the disabled students' office

[mind21_98]

Universities usually have an office for dealing with disabilities like what you mention. They can help with special arrangements if needed. I know this isn't what you wanted, but if note-taking is slow and painful, imagine what taking an exam would be like. :/

As for hardware, I would recommend a laptop. They'd be of much greater use than a PDA would (from experience).

Dictaphone

[lizardloop]

Might not be entirely ideal but it's a fairly quick way of making notes and they aren't massively expensive.

never underestimate your calculator ;)

[applegoddess]

Texas Instruments makes a keyboard compatible with some of their (older) graphing calculators. With their NoteFolio program it cant be too hard to take notes in class with a graphing calculator like the TI-89 and the keyboard. http://education.ti.com/us/product/accessory/keybo ard/features/features.html [ti.com]

How about a used laptop?

[ElForesto]

Dell sells a lot of stuff on eBay. Most of it consists of refurbs and returned leases. Probably pretty good for saving a load on a lightweight laptop. http://stores.ebay.com/Dell-Financial-Services [ebay.com]

Vocational Rehabilitation

[Gangis]

Assuming you're in the US, each state has a Voc Rehab department which provides funding for the disabled going to college. They pay for the entire tuition for me, and my books as well. Sounds like she has a fully qualifying disablity, so VR should be able to buy her a laptop. They did buy me one too, and it was $1800. Just find a VR office in your area and arrange a meeting with the counselor. Also bring proof (doctor's note, records, etc.) of the disability.

I'd recommend a used Apple iBook

[daviddennis]

It's durable and has a full keyboard. You should be able to pick up one of the year or so old G3 models for about $500. For that price, expect a 700-odd mhz snow (white) model. Those have 1024x768 displays. The older color, toilet-seat style models have 800x600 displays and because of that I wouldn't recommend them.

When I advertised on Craigslist (LA) [craigslist.org] for an Apple laptop, I got a PowerBook G4 (original model) for $600. However, for a student the iBook might be better because it's closer to being indestructible.

If you don't like Apple, any used laptop would probably do better than a PDA, even with a keyboard attachment. I used a color palm with the keyboard attachment for a while, and I found that the keyboard folded up on me whenever I tried to type! She would have similar problems, especially considering her health situation.

For a non-Apple laptop, the best quality is probably an IBM ThinkPad. Older ones are dirt cheap, and they will still run reliably and connect up to the mother ship to send back the notes.

If she wants something fuss-free, though, I really don't think you can beat an iBook.

Hope that helps.

D

eMate

[bandy]

The eMate is probably the exactly right thing for her. It will sync with a PC or a Mac [even still] and it is easy on batteries. It will need its hinge problem fixed, but there are plenty of people on the net in the USA/Canada and Europe who know how to do that.

• Sub-$500
• Quiet
• Bulletproof [once the hinge cable is fixed!]
• Easy on the batteries
• Can draw sketches as well as type

NewtonTalk email list [newtontalk.net]

The Apple eMate would be perfect

[jgaynor]

The now End-Of-Life apple Emate would be PERFECT for what youre talking about. It was basically an Apple newton in a small laptop form factor. If I remember correctly Apple marketted them to schoolkids for this exact purpose. Here's a nice synopsis [everymac.com] at everymac.

It can at least sync back to a mac, getting it to sync back to a PC shouldnt be a problem. They're SUPER cheap [ebay.com] on ebay.

Disability Program

[ewithrow]

At my university if there is a student that may be unable to take notes for a class due to a disability then all he/she needs to do is inform the dean of students. They get in contact with the professor and the prof makes an announcement in class that they are looking for someone with good hand writing to take detailed notes. They make copies of the notes for the person with the disability and pay the note taker a small fee for their extra work. You may want to check to see if your college provides this, it beats spending hundreds or thousands on some piece of equipment.

many such devices

[dalutong]

I'm not going to remember the name right now but I spoke to a writer at a conference recently -- the device just had a tiny lcd attached to a keyboard. she plugged it into the usb port on one of the public desktops there and uploaded the text to wordpad. it was pretty cool. she said she got it because she didn't have the money for a laptop so it can't be that expensive.

here's one i found quickly on google. http://www.calcuscribe.com/missing.html

AlphaSmart

[Pantheraleo2k3]

AlphaSmart [alphasmart.com] has a few products that may interest you. The AlphaSmart 3000 (US$200)is a dumb keyboard which stores about 100 pages of text, and 3 AA batteries run it for 300-700 hours. If you need to take notes involving graphics, the Dana [alphasmart.com](US$400), which is a Palm OS hybrid, may be the right thing. The Dana Wireless [alphasmart.com] also has Wi-Fi access.

For something with a bit more power than the 3000 but not a full Palm OS hybrid, you may be interested in the Neo [alphasmart.com], which is due to be released in September.

Mobilepro

[-=[Dr. AJAX]=-]

I got an old NEC mobilepro for similar requirements. It's small, has a keyboard similiar to handheld keyboards and is nice and cheap. The only problem I had was that it ran WinCE 2.11. That version of CE prevented me from using my wifi card with it. So I installed BSD on it and now it works perfectly for viewing, editing, and transfering files on the go.

Palm M100

[Sentry21]

As long as the student in question has good eyesight (or good eyesight correction), you can spend a few bucks on a Palm M100 (probably find them used for $20-40) and a cheapo keyboard. If you scrounged eBay, you could probably find them for less than $50 USD together. They're small and portable, can fit in a purse, and 2 megs of memory is more than enough for a day's worth of notes.

Another option would be to get one of the fancy Sony ones with cameras, whcih can also capture overhead screens.

--Dan

Alpha Smart!

[moosesocks]

The Alpha Smart [alphasmart.com] is exactly the device you are looking for.

It's used primarily (and geared toward) the K-12 education market for students exactly like the one you described.

They are excellent for notetaking and incredibly simple to use. The essential idea is that it's like a miniature word processor that will repeat your keystrokes once you plug it into the computer. Of course, you can edit what you're typing on the builtin LCD.

With the original Alpha Smart (not being produced anymore, but easily findable on Ebay) and the 3000 ($200 direct) interfacing with the computer is embarassingly simple. Simply plug the thing into ANY PC or Mac's keyboard (has ADB and PS2 -- the new ones also have USB), open Word, hit send, and it mimicks a keyboard typing the document. No software required.

That's $200, easily within your price range. I've used them in the school I work in, and find them to be an incredible tool for the students which need them.

If you want something more advanced, $400 will fetch you a similar device with a bigger screen powered by palmOS and 802.11 built in. I've never used them, but with alphasmart's reputation, I expect it to be just as good.

Oh yeah. Did I mention it's designed for K-12? They're durable as hell. I've seen them take a serious beating without being damaged. Thank god for no moving parts and shatter resistant plastic!

Model 100!

[DaveJay]

http://www.club100.org/

Check 'em out. Cheap, unbreakable, full-size keyboard.

retrobox

[robochan]

retrobox.com has a fantastic selection as well - the HP Omnibook 6000 I'm typing this on, a PII700 w/384 meg ram, came from there(just over $300)
clicky clicky [retrobox.com]

Re:Alpha Smart!

[Anonymous Coward]

I certainly hope the story submitter goes with an Alphasmart solution because it perfectly fits the criteria given.

As someone who has owned an Alphie I will say the 3000 has a spongier keyboard than the Dana because it has removable keys that need to pop out. As an advantage the keyboard can be completely rearranged to match Dvorak, left or right handed (only) Dvorak, or other international layouts. If this isn't a feature you're looking for you might consider spending a little extra for a Dana. The Dana has one of the nicest typing keyboards out there which is worth the relatively low 20 hours battery life versus the 3000's ~400-700 hours.

Re:Not to sound cynical...

[Eevee]

It's called dysgraphia [nih.gov]. You'll note that about halfway down the page is "Some physicians recommend that individuals with dysgraphia use computers to avoid the problems of handwriting."

Re:Get back to work!!

[menscher]

Hahaha.

For anyone who happens to be reading this, my original rant was about people who go crazy trying to obfuscate their email addresses and have them fill out web-forms to contact them. I said I wasn't afraid to just put my email address ([e-mail] [mailto]) online. (You may also reach me at: [e-mail] [mailto], [e-mail] [mailto], and, if you want to bypass SpamAssassin/ClamAV, at [e-mail] [mailto]. )

Or, if you really like webforms, go to http://www.itg.uiuc.edu/people/ [uiuc.edu] and click the "send email" link by my name.

SpamAssassin and ClamAV are free and work well. Speaking of which, there's a release candidate for SA-3.0.0 available now. Go test it!

university-provided notes

[cube32]

i know that at my uni, if you've got a good reason for not being able to come to a lecture, then the lecturer will provide notes for you. i've never had a "good" reason though (hangovers don't count, apparently)

i use an ipod with a griffin italk, it works fantastically. i'm told it's better than the belkin, particularly the inbuilt speaker. having a copy of the lecture, along with the notes i jot at the time, helps a lot when exam time comes, i find.