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Comment by pgcm1 | Hacker News Reader

I never knew why I unconsciously chose analog over digital in those cases, but it turns out there's a scientific explanation. When we write, we make our brains go through an abstraction process - separating something from a whole to analyze it by itself.- According to neurologist Audrey Van Der Meer, "It seems that keyboards and pens bring into play different underlying neurological processes. This may not be surprising since handwriting/drawing is a complex task that requires the integration of various skills."

I wrote a full article about it in the link above.

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Every time this topic comes up, I am curious to see a cross-generational study.

I'd also be interested in seeing the result of taking notes with a less linear note taking tool, such as OneNote and its infinite canvas, compared to pure linear note taking.

Now for most math classes, and other subjects that involve lots of diagrams, hand writing (digital or analog) is better! (Ignoring the people who are so good at LaTeX they can do complex math equations)

IMHO the largest issue with modern teaching is the use of slides. I was going to college just as the transition to PowerPoint was happening, and wow was the degradation in quality of teaching noticeable.

One of my profs, whose class I had a low opinion of, used slides for all his lectures. One day the projector broke down and he had to teach on the chalk board. It was amazing! The quality of his lecture improved dramatically when he was able to go back and make changes to past diagrams, or change examples on the fly to dive deeper into something the students had difficulty grasping.

The other problem with PowerPoint is that it goes by faster than students can take notes! If the prof and the students are both writing notes, they are on (mostly) equal ground, ignoring that profs have decades of experience writing quickly.

There was also the transitionary period where teachers and profs would print slides onto transparencies and project those onto a screen. The overhead projectors sometimes had a roll of plastic that they could write on with a felt marker either over the slides or as a blank canvas. A bit of googling reveals that many primary schools still use these, and not all have transitioned to “smart boards”.

It was a good trade off, and it’s kind of surprising that the rise of tablets and styluses hasn’t seen this hybrid model return.

It's been over 15 years since I was scribbling on PowerPoint slides while my Tablet PC was hooked to the projector. I'll ask my spouse if her MS Surface supports such functionality, because I found it pretty darned handy at the time.

I have little need for such a feature anymore, so I don't know if an iPad Pro w/stylus can do that with Keynote (not without looking it up).

Apple Pencil is able to markup on Keynote slides [0] as well as Powerpoint (should be like OneNote based on a App Store article) [1]

[0]: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/keynote-ipad/tance6afa...

[1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/story/id1458378181

In the 2010s my organic chemistry professor would use one of those projectors and a sheet of blank printer paper, and would just write out chemical formulas all class. We basically all took notes together along with the professor each lecture, which was great because that meant he could never speed up too much since he had to spend time writing everything down, too. Then everything would go up online afterwards if you needed to refer to the professors notes from that day.

My own experience in school lines up with what you described. There's something about having to teach 'manually?' that gives more energy to the lecture.

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