At my university, lecturers are slowly making the transition to technology, allowing notes to be accessed the day before on the web. However, there are some esteemed academics who maintain the old fashioned approach of making us feverishly copy the notes during class to ensure all would miss their mother's funeral to attend.
Since these lecturers are uncompromisingly stubborn, I propose the creation of a student body that orgainizes lectures such that only one person takes down the notes and photocopies them to everyone else. This unfortunate task could be rostered between students part of what i call the "coalition of laziness". The result would be students actually concentrating on what the lecturer has to say, thus providing for an enhanced learning experience.
This idea is really only suitable to classes where the subject matter does not call for overly personalised notes. Students part of this organization would have to pass a stringent handwriting test, and penalties must be enforced for note-taking incompetence. I anticipate students may be inclined not to attend these lectures if notes will be available, thus the Lecture Collusive Agency should organize a roll call before each lecture.-- phlegm, Oct 22 2003 YourNotes http://www.yournotes.com/This is one such service. (For Penn State U. students). [krelnik, Oct 04 2004] Widely baked. I did this, my friends did this, my fellow students all did this (luckily for me). We even had a coincidental rota as people went out on different nights of the week and we began to notice who was missing/present at any particular lecture slot.
Strangely I ended up with a Monday morning 3 hour long philosophy lecture which I really enjoyed. Still being in that still half pissed, cushioned, trance-like, smiling state really helps when you have to discuss the nature of reality with a 65 year old australian with a liverpudlian accent in a cellar.
The notes I made were fun to decifer afterwards too.-- squeak, Oct 22 2003 He had a Liverpudlian accent in his cellar? That would certainly test my concept of the nature of reality.-- lostdog, Oct 22 2003 squeak, perhaps my idea is baked. But i would imagine not to the grand scale that i propose.-- phlegm, Oct 22 2003 Yes, its baked. See link.-- krelnik, Oct 22 2003 Not baked on a grand scale, you say? How not grand is the scale is half the students in the known universe? Quite.
[lostdog] Somehow it made sense on Mondays. I think he kept it there because the cold and damp made it feel at home.-- squeak, Oct 22 2003 I've found I don't learn well from notes, especially someone else's notes, (althought they're usually more useful than my own). I have to hear and preferrably see the development of the presentation.-- RayfordSteele, Oct 22 2003 It's a really good title though!
But you're lucky you have all this technology in the first place, you punk. I had to feverishly scribble my own indecipherable notes, and I'm none the worse for it. Quit yer bellyachin'.-- snarfyguy, Oct 22 2003 random, halfbakery