Higher Education
In 2011, I graduated from the Executive MBA program at Duke University. For each course, students were given a three-ringed binder notebook with the reading and assignments. We were not allowed to have laptops in class, so all my notes were hand written right on the pages of those binders. I moved to New York City after completing the program to a tiny apartment and didn’t have room for them anymore, so I went through each one and transcribed the most important notes into a digital note taking tool. I took this picture after I stacked them all in the refuse room of my apartment building. Although I had copied the most important notes, I knew that I was losing a tremendous amount of knowledge.
Anyone who has ever thrown out text books or notebooks containing handwritten notes knows the pain of knowing that some of that knowledge is gone forever.
Potential Uses
- Students each have a personal wiki where they document all their class notes, reading notes, papers, and projects
- Each course has a project wiki owned by the professor and connections with all students. This would allow easy sharing of the syllabus, course notes, assignments, etc.
Comparison to an LMS
- Most institutions of higher education use a Learning Management System (LMS) for submitting assignments and distributing grades. Many have additional features as well.
- The LMS is not designed to store students' notes or research
- Typically, when the course ends, the student's looses access to everything related to the course