If you’ve walked into a classroom in the past year or so, then you’ve noticed that Students have traded out their spiral notebooks for laptop computers. With the advances in laptops and the ease of portability, taking notes on a laptop has become a necessity for some students. But when it comes to taking notes, which program is the best? Here at CampusByte we picked 3 of the best note taking applications. Some of our picks might surprise you!
1. Circus Ponies Notebook 3.0 (Mac OS X):
RATING 4.5/5.0
PRICE $29.95 (faculty, student, staff, admin)
We really liked Notebook! There isn’t enough room on the page to describe all this program can do. Thankfully Circus Ponies provides all users with video tutorials on how to use every aspect of this program. For starters this program looks amazing. It takes up very little space on the desktop and looks just like a spiral notebook. With features like audio recording and the ability to draw shapes and pictures, this program tops our list at the number one spot.
Pros: Video Tutorials, Save all data in notebook format.
Cons: Can be hard to get used to.
2. Microsoft Word 2008 (Mac OS X)
Rating 4.0/5.0
Price $149.95 (Home and Student Edition)
Surprising enough, Microsoft Word 2008 for the mac makes it into the number 2 spot. Microsoft added a notebook view to the 2008 version of MS word that allows you to take notes along side audio recordings. The program runs very similar to the Circus Ponies program, however, MS word does not give you the ability to make ‘Pages’. You must save each page as a separate word document. If you are working on a Mac and already have MS office this can be a great program.
Pros: Ease of use, Price (possibly cheap or free though campus bookstore)
Cons: Can’t save data in notebook format.
3. Microsoft OneNote (Windows & Mac)
Rating 4.0/5.0
Price $149.95 (Home and Student Edition)
If you are ready to teach yourself a new program, give Microsoft OneNote a try. At first this program will leave you frustrated and confused, but after using it for a few weeks and getting the hang of it, OneNote will end up being a very useful tool. We do recommend getting a Tablet PC notebook if you decide to get creative with your note taking. OneNote gives you plenty of features to play with, the hard part is learning them all, and unlike the Circus Ponies program, there are no video tutorials to teach you how to use it. If you already have MS Office and are a quick learner, MS OneNote might be the program for you.
Pros: Features, Tablet PC integration
Cons: Very hard to learn.
Any programs we forgot to mention? Let us know in the comments.
[tags] note taking programs, notes, note taking, college, microsoft word, microsoft office, class, laptop, tablet PC, mac, PC, windows [/tags]
2 Comments
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Hi Jay,
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Cheers
Marcus
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