Note Taking Devices for Students? 144
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?"
Note Taking Devices for Students? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Get back to work!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Get back to work!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously.
Oh wait, links from slashdot? Nevermind.
Product Idea ... (Score:4, Interesting)
a device consisting of a keyboard, with a 1 line LCD Screen across the top (can even be segmented, like on a cheesy calculator), that allows you to type, and see what you are typing, and not much else
Maybe even skip the flash; just have a MB of RAM; that's it. the KB could have a regular old kb connector, and you can hit a special key sequence to dump the memory to the KB Port. (The software here would be SO simple
The point is, this could be manufactured REALLY cheap; and would be ideal for taking notes. You could even outfit it with the guts of one of these [slashdot.org] to take snapshots of blackboards, etc.
It would seem like something like this could sell for < $50
Even starving college kids could afford one.
When I was in school.... (Score:3, Interesting)
The trick is to set up style sheets and macros and such for Word to allow you to get all of the symbols and stuff.
Of course, typing may not help too much if you have hand problems.
Most unversities, when faced with a student who has a medically documented problem taking notes the normal way, will generally provide you with "accomidations". All you need is a doctor to vouch for you. Accomodiations will generally be some sort of notetaking service, at least.
Different schools do it differently. Some schools can move heaven and earth for you if you have a documented dissability.
Re:never underestimate your calculator ;) (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Vocational Rehabilitation (Score:3, Interesting)
Highest tax bracket in the US is 28% for Federal, kicking in at about $70k a year. Lets call this $20k after deductions.
Tack on another 6.2% for Social Security, plus another 6.2% to cover employer matching if you are self employed. Another $10k here.
Add in 8.25% sales tax on everything in a few of the bigger states. There goes $3k
Add in 6% state income tax on the average (I hear CA is more.) Nice $5k here.
Kick in a cheapo house at $250,000, tax rate of 2.5% in the city and you are paying another $6k.
Register your vehicles and pay the licensing, taxes, and inspection taxes : $1k tops.
That's about $45k right off the top in taxes. You are probably right, just in taxes he isn't paying 60%, but it is brushing up against the Half-Way mark. Add in insurance (car = $1500, house = $1500, medical for a 2 person family = $5,000) and you bust right through the half way mark at $53,000 gone before you buy your first candy bar, and I assumed way low on the price of the house. But going with it, knock another $1,800/month in house payments, $150/mo in electricity, $100/mo in cable (tv/Internet), $100/mo in phone (cell + landline), $50/mo in water, $50/mo in natural gas, $100/mo in gasoline and there goes another $28k, summing $81k before you buy your first candy bar. Throw in a relatively conservative $250/mo for a car payment (lease or buy) because you need something dependable to get you to your $100k/year job, and there goes another $3k - don't forget your 7% ($7k) towards a 401(k) or some sort of retirement plan and bumping you up against the $91k mark in just fixed expenses. Leaves a whopping $9,000 per year, or $750 per month for food, clothes, a computer, software licensing, liquor, eye glasses / contact lenses, medical deductables, lunch at work, toys, haircuts, and what have you.
Yea, $100k/year is a lot, but after the government takes half and fixed expenses take another third there isn't a lot left over.
As for the OP: we all hated taking notes in class. It sucks, and it is painful - but we do it. If you are female, taking tech classes with nerds
How about a Jornada 720 or something? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Get back to work!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Get a lightly used/older laptop.... (Score:2, Interesting)