For those of you who are tech savvy and have exposure to kids in college who take digital notes, any recommendations?

My friends (not tech savvy) have kids that are now in college. The kids have a desire to take notes digitally rather than with paper and pen.

Some requirements:
1) They have a Windows or Mac laptop; would prefer to use it if possible. Some have an iPad (not current model) as well.
2) Need to be able to input using 'hand writing' but the hand writing is not just words in English. It will be drawings (ie - chemistry and biology), complex mathematical graphs and equations (including matrices), foreign languages (ie - chinese characters).
3) paper/pen is easiest and cheapest, but would like to be able to save these notes as searchable digital files (including metadata or keywords in the file as needed, perhaps file name as well).

Looking for some recommendations for HW peripherals and SW (hopefully not too expensive) that will do the trick. Trying to figure out if some Wacom product will fit here. But even if it does, not sure what SW to use with it to enable the above needs. If ipad is good enough (just need a Pencil (first edition I think)), still don't know what app would be good for this.

Help appreciated.

Goodnotes 5 and a MacBook or iPad or iPhone as it syncs across all 3 devices. Use an Apple Pencil. Plenty of awesome videos showing all the features, functions and benefits.

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Goodnotes 5 and a MacBook or iPad or iPhone as it syncs across all 3 devices. Use an Apple Pencil. Plenty of awesome videos showing all the features, functions and benefits.

Cool. Thanks. I'll look into it.

Any recommendations for someone with just Windows laptop? Is there a Wacom based solution similar to iPad + Goodnotes?

Rocketbook. It's a pad of paper (you can even print the pages off yourself) with some registration marks and QR codes. Using the companion app, you can take pictures of the pages and the app straightens out the images using the registration marks as reference. It has special locations on the page for you to mark that activate automatic routines. Mark a symbol to file the document into OneNote/Evernote/OneDrive/GoogleDrive etc. Mark a symbol to trigger an email. Write the name of the document in a certain spot and that becomes the file name when you scan it. Dates too. etc. It's pretty cool.

Once scanned, the pages can be filed, searched, converted to text, etc. Benefit is that you are writing on paper (faster, more accurate) and you still have paper that you can lay out and flip through in front of you. You just now also have a digital copy that you can search, annotate, and use in your electronic notes.

Microsoft's OneNote is a good PC software. it combines the usability of Word, but allows you to easily pull snippets of images from other documents, embed media, etc. It allows you to arrange notes into notebooks, so you don't just have loose document files sitting in a folder.

In addition to the two tools above, the student needs to get savvy using Google Drive. Collaborating on documents is a thing now -- students will now team up to simultaneously take notes on (and annotate each other's notes) a single document.

Also, students now typically just take pictures of the board now.

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Originally posted by konata88:

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Goodnotes 5 and a MacBook or iPad or iPhone as it syncs across all 3 devices. Use an Apple Pencil. Plenty of awesome videos showing all the features, functions and benefits.

Cool. Thanks. I'll look into it.

Any recommendations for someone with just Windows laptop? Is there a Wacom based solution similar to iPad + Goodnotes?

A Windows Tablet would function like an iPad. There are a number to choose from. Not the way I would go, but if they need to buy a laptop anyway, it's not a terrible way to do it.

Wacom tablets are for creators. They have standalone tablets that look like screens you can doodle on, but they are $$$$. The Wacom peripherals are not for notetaking. The fact that you aren't looking where you are writing (screen is separate from the writing surface) works okay for drawing and painting, but slows down writing too much.

I'd think surface tablet with detachable keyboard.
More compact than a laptop but more versatile than a tablet.

Thanks guys - I'll look into the above suggestions.

Microsoft Surface will do this.

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Originally posted by Aeteocles:

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Originally posted by konata88:

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Goodnotes 5 and a MacBook or iPad or iPhone as it syncs across all 3 devices. Use an Apple Pencil. Plenty of awesome videos showing all the features, functions and benefits.

Cool. Thanks. I'll look into it.

Any recommendations for someone with just Windows laptop? Is there a Wacom based solution similar to iPad + Goodnotes?

A Windows Tablet would function like an iPad. There are a number to choose from. Not the way I would go, but if they need to buy a laptop anyway, it's not a terrible way to do it.

Wacom tablets are for creators. They have standalone tablets that look like screens you can doodle on, but they are $$$$. The Wacom peripherals are not for notetaking. The fact that you aren't looking where you are writing (screen is separate from the writing surface) works okay for drawing and painting, but slows down writing too much.

There are Wacom “pen displays” that are peripheral devices that combine the writing surface with a display without being a standalone computer, but they’re still quite expensive and a poor choice for portable notetaking.

If you absolutely have to do digital notetaking in a subject where all the notes can’t be easily typed, the ONLY option that makes any sense at all is to use a device with a stylus-compatible screen that can be put in a comfortable writing position.

This rules out traditional laptops and leaves you with tablets, 2-in-1s, convertibles, etc.

The one kind-of exception to this would be using an iPad as a pen display for a MacBook with Sidecar. I haven’t tried it, but I suspect Apple has made it a seamless enough user experience to not be TOO much of a pain in the ass, but it would probably still make more sense to just use the iPad by itself in the first place.

Paper-based scan-to-digital systems like Aeteocles mentioned are a reasonable middle ground if you don’t want notetaking to suck but still want digital access after the fact.

iPad Air and Apple Pencil.

I was a 20 year notebook and pen note taker and have completely switched to the Air using OneNote.

It automatically syncs to the cloud and I can access via multiple computers, phone, etc.

Other programs can do similar, but we use Office 365 at work so OneNote is an obvious choice.

OneNote is awesome.

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Originally posted by ArtieS:
Microsoft Surface will do this.

Be extremely careful if you go this route.

My son, who worked in IT support, warned against choosing a Surface as a crack in the screen would be a death kell for it

For software, I recommend Microsoft OneNote. College students get favorable rates for computer software and hardware.

rocketbook, fantastic.
both of my kids use it

One of the cadets in the Academy I instruct in used Rocketbook. He said it was extremely useful, and was one of the brighter in the herd

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Rocketbook

Question re: Rocketbook. All information is completely contained to me? Everything I want to do from writing / drawing something on paper, to creating a digitized file and perhaps converting ink to text is all done locally?

If I don't need to depend or require ANY contact outside my device to use it, it sounds interesting. Otherwise, it's out.

It says it only needs internet to back up to cloud services, so I dont believe you need it to run it, only to do online services as you choose.

My son has "borrowed” my Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 which included the Samsung S-pen or whatever they call it. He took notes with it using the Samsung app all week and showed me what he did. It’ll straighten lines for example which makes his charts from macroeconomics look good for example.

We looked at the OneNote app, but it’s really limited for Android. On the other hand, the windows version handles equations which would probably be handy for his upcoming classes. He has a great laptop already.

What is the minimum Microsoft Surface that would run OneNote well?

I’m seeing a Surface Pro 7+ with a keyboard, pen, 11th gen I5, 8gb mem, 128gb SSD for $800 or a Surface Pro 8 with the same specs but no keyboard or pen for the same $800.

My son (college sophomore) has the 11 inch iPad pro with apple keyboard and apple pencil, for a full year now and he loves it. His school standardized on Office365 and provides it to students, so Outlook, OneNote, Word, etc. I personally believe the MS Surface Pro with keyboard and surface pen is more cost-effective with bigger screen, but less battery-life. I own MS Surface Pro 6, which I use for most non-work related computer tasks.

I bought the Surface Pro 7+ with the keyboard and pen from Best Buy for $800. I'll report back after my son has had a week or so to use it. He's a high school junior and a college freshman. All his classes are at the college this semester and the next three semesters. He's got Calc 1, 2, 3 coming up as well as Chem 2 and Physics 1 & 2. Since I'm not paying for the college credits, I'm OK giving this a shot if there's a chance it will give him an edge.