I came across this article today. It is a research from Princeton University;

Study finds that writing notes by hand is best way to remember details”

 

Students where allowed to take notes either on their laptop or with pen and paper. Those who used pen and paper were able to recall significantly more, and what is more important ‘understood’ more of what was said during the lecture. As iPad’s and laptop’s are a welcome addition to the toolset of our students, they shouldn’t replace paper completely.

I always took visual notes during my whole school career (mostly because this is how my visual spatial mind works and it allows me to understand and remember better). And although it was mostly frowned upon and sometimes even banished ( getting low grades, or no grade at all for doodling in my notebook) it got me through high school and university. Having sometimes only to look at my notes again for understanding.

Now I am not saying that visual note-taking is the holy grale, I am saying that pen and paper is still a very important learning tool, drawing or writing,  and visual note-taking could be a very useful addition to making notes on paper if learned at school early on for many of our students and children.