I read a nice post in the Harvard Business Review today about the ever growing problem of people having their eyes on their cell phones instead of the events going on around them…like driving or getting married!

This made me think: Does having all of the students in a class take notes really provide any value?  

Are all those laptops, tablets, phones and notebooks hurting more than they’re helping?

In classrooms, I am never a good notetaker so perhaps this is just part of my skepticism.  In the business world, we typically either assign a notetaker or just take pictures of whiteboards when we’re done, but in the education world, it was the complete opposite.

Are there any teachers out there who have experimented with this topic?

Does outlawing student note taking result in better engagement and higher information retention?

-Keith