I built a second brain tool for college students | Hacker News Reader

I built a second brain tool for college students

ainotebook.app

26 pointssandykongkong35 comments

Interestingly this wouldn't be allowed at my university:

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Student Recordings

14. Unless students are specifically required by the University under a programme of study or research to make recordings, prior consent by the member of University staff managing that activity will be required.

15. Only in exceptional circumstances will consent be given. An example of an exceptional circumstance could be where a student with a disability needs to make a personal recording. It is to be assumed that where consent is given the recording may only be used for private study. This will not allow for further copying or sharing with other students.

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https://secretariat.leeds.ac.uk/policies-procedures-and-code...

I think this policy is pretty common.

Breaking the rules is a unicorn rite of passage.

Right, I've talked to some students and they mentioned it. You may need to ask the professor's consent directly if you want to use the voice transcription features, though. You can also use it outside the class, like in group discussions with your colleagues to transcribe into text.

I'm a professor. At my school we would never let a student record us. Hell, the school had to force some of the teachers to give out their PPTs so the students could study them. Those profs responded by printing them 6 slides per page.

We also stopped using YouTube for anything more than 5 years ago when the first pre-LLM summary apps appeared online and when students complained about paying to watch YT. Same thing for podcasts.

The subjects I teach can all be taught on the board, so I am lucky.

Within the next 5 years we will be phasing out written evaluations and exams.

> Hell, the school had to force some of the teachers to give out their PPTs so the students could study them. Those profs responded by printing them 6 slides per page.

Why? I never got why this is made so hard. Isn't the transfer of knowledge the whole point?

A lot of academics are precariously employed (short, term-time only contracts). They are often against the recording of lectures because they're concerned that the universities won't bother paying them to deliver the lectures again next year when they could just give students the recordings.

Yeah, recordings are one thing. But I'm asking about the presentation itself. If the teacher doesn't provide more value over reading the presentation... that's not a good sign for the teacher.

Is this because you are forced to prepare your own course material for every course you teach? Because this whole setup seems insane especially for supposedly standardised courses.

Two contrasting notes:

- on one side recording a typical frontal lesson is next to useless because a classic frontal lesson is meant to be listened during the speech itself, where the teacher surveil the class and change the narrative according to his/her own feeling of the class;

- on the other IMVHO it's about time to deeply rethink the lesson model. We have IT, a "relatively new" tool and it's about time to properly integrate it, meaning instead of classic lesson recorded and carefully tuned lectio magistralis TED-format alike. Students listen the alone, perhaps in the evening and alone, listen, replay, take notes etc. In high schools, in the subsequent morning they develop a lesson on what they have learnt and got randomly chosen to teach that lesson to their peers and teachers, using teachers questions to drive/correct/show missing parts of their learning, at the uni teachers will only be available for direct interaction for all questions, meaning a kind of one-to-one dialogue where the student learn alone and have someone to ask for anything, than classic exams where students notes assembled became a small book to refresh all already learnt.

Most people today fails to act alone, really understand basing themselves on memory and repetition, to crack this obscene state of thing IMVHO we must force people to be active instead of passive/interactive spectator, so on one side they really show their competences and on the other they really have to learn.

If a prospective employee told me a story about how they used a note-taking app like this to optimize their school grade output I would be extremely worried for a lot of reasons and consider it a major red flag.

What would be encouraging is an app that does not REPLACE your note taking but rather amplifies the capabilities.

You must take notes to learn deep. Handwritten is very important.

You will miss some things, which an AI could be tracking and summarize

What I would consider valuable is an app that supplements your notes. It would need two components... the app you have now, and reading in the notes that you have taken. Then if you asked it to go deep on a particular note or section you took notes on, it could add to the notes that you took without stealing the important part of the learning process

I thought I was the only one who thought this way.

The process of note taking is what really helps me learn things. I think I'm slicing and dicing what I'm reading and imposing on it a structure that helps me create connections and get a deeper understanding. After this, I review the notes almost daily and the way I've written it, positions on the page etc. all help me recollect the material. Over time, it becomes reflexive and I can use that as a foundation to build the next layer of knowledge.

I can see AI tools as a great way to index large amounts of rarely used reference matter. e.g. To solve the "Yeah... I remember reading about that but I'm not exactly sure where". Then retrieve it and everything comes back.

I also see it as useful to quiz me on things which I think I've studied. But outside of that, I think such tools will not help learning but will hold one back. However, this is very dependent on the method of learning one uses.

> The process of note taking is what really helps me learn things.

Yes, it reminds one of Douglas Adams' "Electric Monk", that was built to believe things -- so that people wouldn't have to exert the mental effort of believing things themselves.

Similarly, this app can take notes for you, so that you won't have to exert any cognitive effort while learning.

I have been looking for good note taking for a while and this seems to tick all boxes, but I want to know at what price. Spent good 30 minutes going through their website and product hunt launch and could not find any mention of pricing = totally lost me. Replies on product hunt a very "robotic" and marketing oriented eg "Thank you for feedback, enjoy 3 days free trial!" but very little substance, and still no mention of pricing.

On the App Store listing, the in-app purchases are listed as $6.99 CAD for a pro weekly membership, and $99.99 CAD for 1 year.

80€/year as per the Android app (which might be more than it actually costs because of the Google Play fees)

Thanks for the suggestion on adding pricing info on website. We offer a weekly plan ($4.99) and a yearly plan ($69.99) with a 3-day free trial of unlimited access. You can still try the app with 10 free credits for every new users to see if it meets your needs.

Taking notes is part of the process of learning. The first part is hearing the information from the professor. The second part is writing it down, either verbatim or paraphrasing. The third part is review. Having another person or program create the notes takes away at least two of these opportunities to learn information.

Missing a class here and there due to emergencies is perfectly acceptable. But having someone or something else take the notes for you because you think you’re too busy to attend class is cheating yourself.

Given that this is for college students I think it's fair to be particular about the grammar of the title of this post. Either it should be 'second-brain tool' or, if you must, Second Brain tool; as it stands it reads like youre building a second brain, and it's a tool. Confusing.

Thank you for point out this and I ll write it this way next time: Second Brain tool.

When I take notes, in particular by hand, I already start learning or at least forming some notions in my mind about the things that I man need to review. Note taking is already part of learning. So I am not sure that this tool is actually doing me a favor.

You're already able to see past the subtle subterfuge here: "let us lift the heavy weights for you, we'll make going to the gym so much easier!"

...however, I'm almost certain that you are not in their target demographic :)

True, but I may be in their group of champions, because I have a lot of contact with students.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39482641

and here I was just following a conversation the other day about how the Tools for Thought space was slowing down .....

https://x.com/codexeditor/status/1820757626910855656?t=zkP6H...

Do good grades equate to a good student, and a bad grade to a bad student?

I'm the kind of person who is easily distracted in class and often misses the point. Even with handwritten notes, I can't recall key points.

That's why I built the AI Notebook App. Designed for college students and ADHD-friendly, it captures everything you see and hear in class. Upload images, audio, PDFs, and web links. Consider it your second brain!

I aim to help students capture everything in class, organize it into notes with summaries, and even chat with AI to understand complex topics.

I'd like to ask for advice on reaching college students. I'm open to affiliate collaborations. Thank you!

Good students select and focus on the most relevant information in a class, and rehearse it for themselves or practice skills outside it. There is some limited evidence that making note taking easier or notes easier to read leads to worse memory for key material.

For my students with adhd, I’m honestly not sure more tech is the issue.

I agree. The whole poin of my taking notes by myself in college was to help me memorize the fundamentals and help me reason out the more complex stuff through dedicated focus time. Notes I got from other people (when I missed class or for comparison) just didn’t stick to my mental map of the course, and I suspect AI is useless for that as well.

It would be better to take my existing notes and automatically create quizzes or flash cards.

AI notebook can "read" your handwritten notes too. You can simply take pictures and to upload it. The app can automatically create quizzes or flash cards.

Some professors and lecturers don't release any PDFs, so this might be invaluable to have at least a transcript of the lecture.

I'm not sure making the note capturing less engaging and easier to ignore is going to be helpful for ADHD-i adjacent people. At least noting things down forces a single task to some degree.

What helps me as an ADHD-student is to turn off any laptop or device completely. Desk empty, no notes, no distractions whatsoever. Just focusing on what the teacher is saying. The real studying comes after or before the lesson and that's when these tools help. I also just think many people never really learned how to study.. the magic never happens as one is in class.

You're right, I over generalised a bit, it's going to mesh with some better than others.

The funny part is that the importance in taking notes is the physical aspect of the fine motor control associated with writing making it easier for you to remember what you wrote. Even pressing keys on a keyboard eliminates this factor.

Edit: Let me get an actual source..

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....

> As traditional handwriting is progressively being replaced by digital devices, it is essential to investigate the implications for the human brain. Brain electrical activity was recorded in 36 university students as they were handwriting visually presented words using a digital pen and typewriting the words on a keyboard. Connectivity analyses were performed on EEG data recorded with a 256-channel sensor array. When writing by hand, brain connectivity patterns were far more elaborate than when typewriting on a keyboard, as shown by widespread theta/alpha connectivity coherence patterns between network hubs and nodes in parietal and central brain regions. Existing literature indicates that connectivity patterns in these brain areas and at such frequencies are crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information and, therefore, are beneficial for learning.

> Our findings suggest that the spatiotemporal pattern from visual and proprioceptive information obtained through the precisely controlled hand movements when using a pen, contribute extensively to the brain’s connectivity patterns that promote learning. We urge that children, from an early age, must be exposed to handwriting activities in school to establish the neuronal connectivity patterns that provide the brain with optimal conditions for learning.

Thanks. That's what I also notice by myself. If I want to really learn something, I write and read books. If it's about to get an overview, I read and write digitally. Chances are good, I forget bout this comment in 3..2..1 ... :)

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