Summary:
Students will undoubtedly be using summarizing and note taking skills at least until they finish their education career, but many will take those skills even beyond the classroom. These skills are foundational for academic success as well as vocational success in that they help the brain to combine and condense information in an organized, understandable fashion. In studies done to find correlation between note-taking and listening comprehension, researchers found that “note-taking by using concept mapping positively affected comprehension . . . note-taking by using the Cornell technique while listening positively affected their listening comprehension . . . note-taking had a positive impact on both achievement and recall in history education.” These are not skills to overlook or treat flippantly in the classroom, especially in the early years!
Technology Tool #1: NoteStar
Students will undoubtedly be using summarizing and note taking skills at least until they finish their education career, but many will take those skills even beyond the classroom. These skills are foundational for academic success as well as vocational success in that they help the brain to combine and condense information in an organized, understandable fashion. In studies done to find correlation between note-taking and listening comprehension, researchers found that “note-taking by using concept mapping positively affected comprehension . . . note-taking by using the Cornell technique while listening positively affected their listening comprehension . . . note-taking had a positive impact on both achievement and recall in history education.” These are not skills to overlook or treat flippantly in the classroom, especially in the early years!
Technology Tool #1: NoteStar
Rating: 9/10
NoteStar is an easily navigable tool with much to offer. I was able to quickly create a class project, and could share it with my class. It allowed me to give directions and objectives right there so students could have all the information they need to complete the project. Our school already has an LMS that provides basically the same service, so this might not be necessary for my situation, but it could certainly still be useful. I would highly recommend it to any school especially one that doesn’t have any LMS already in place.
Technology Tool #2: ThinkTank
NoteStar is an easily navigable tool with much to offer. I was able to quickly create a class project, and could share it with my class. It allowed me to give directions and objectives right there so students could have all the information they need to complete the project. Our school already has an LMS that provides basically the same service, so this might not be necessary for my situation, but it could certainly still be useful. I would highly recommend it to any school especially one that doesn’t have any LMS already in place.
Technology Tool #2: ThinkTank
Rating: 8/10
This tool can be integrated with NoteStar, which gave me more reason to see what it has to offer. I was overall pleased with the website’s options. I provided an image of the very simple research project topic that I created. This website again is a little more difficult to use in the music setting, but I would still consider using it for a collaborative research project. I would certainly recommend it to any teacher that administers a research or summarizing project. It gives the student an understanding of how to develop a topic and subtopics that will guide a paper or project. The students learn basic skills for organizing information, which is excellent!
Resource:
Coskun, I., Delican, B., Dilci, T., & Gur, T. (2013). The impact of note-taking while listening on listening comprehension in a higher education context. International Journal of Academic Research, 5(1), 93-97.
This tool can be integrated with NoteStar, which gave me more reason to see what it has to offer. I was overall pleased with the website’s options. I provided an image of the very simple research project topic that I created. This website again is a little more difficult to use in the music setting, but I would still consider using it for a collaborative research project. I would certainly recommend it to any teacher that administers a research or summarizing project. It gives the student an understanding of how to develop a topic and subtopics that will guide a paper or project. The students learn basic skills for organizing information, which is excellent!
Resource:
Coskun, I., Delican, B., Dilci, T., & Gur, T. (2013). The impact of note-taking while listening on listening comprehension in a higher education context. International Journal of Academic Research, 5(1), 93-97.