COVID-19 has forced an abrupt change in the way students learn. Your classes are online and you’re no longer facing a teacher/tutor using the whiteboard as you jot down notes.

Notetaking can be difficult when you’re having online classes and struggling to catch up with everything. However, there are many ways that you can adopt to make your notetaking process smoother online.

Let me introduce them to you:

Online notepads

You can use an online notepad to quickly type down any ideas that may pop up in your head, or any questions that might surface during the class.

Online notepads provide you with some of the best online tools that can help you to make your learning much more efficient.

Here are some useful functions of using an online notepad:

1) No installation required

Simply search for an online text editor on your browser.

2) Multiple formatting

Having access to different font styles (e.g. bold, italic, underlined) and formatting (e.g. highlighting, font size, colours) is one of the greatest conveniences that an online notepad can bring because it makes your notes effortlessly neat and organised.

This saves you the hassle of needing to keep stationeries (e.g. paper, notebooks, multiple-coloured pens, or highlighters) to make your notes.

3) Check word count

Manually counting your words is extremely time-consuming. Online notepads can do it automatically for you.

4) Check for mistakes in language

These tools can detect and notify you of your grammatical or spelling mistakes so that your content can be easily read and understood.

5) Share files

You can easily share your saved files with other people in a professional and presentable manner.

6) Copy and paste

Being able to copy from your lecture slides or school materials to your own notes is an important feature that you will have with making online notes.

Voice typing using Google Docs

Google Docs is a commonly used application to keep word documents. However, what many people don’t know of is the voice typing feature.

All you have to do is open Google Docs in your browser and go to ‘tools’ at the task menu bar. You will then find the option of ‘voice typing’ and it will automatically transcribe what your teacher/tutor says in class.

Since voice typing works by audial clarity, there are prone to be an incorrect word or punctuation detections. However, they are mostly differentiable and you can edit the differences afterward.

Using a Chrome extension

There are Chrome extensions that you can add to your browser for you to input your email address and receive your notes later on.

It will then churn out notes from the Zoom recordings, preventing you from missing out on your notetaking.

Final words

It is important to make effective and accurate notes as you journey along with your online classes. You can use multiple methods to make online notes during your Zoom classes.

Taking online notes allows for more efficiency as you can type quickly. Plus, your notes are all in one place, saving you the hassle of copying or bringing your physical notes.

I hope that after reading this article, you will be able to make full use of the available technologies to make your Home-Based Learning (HBL) life easier!