Edunotes – a mobile learning application for collaborative note-taking in lecture settings

Abstract

Note-taking activities are encouraged in teaching as a mechanism for information retention, review and consolidation, as well as for promoting active engagement with the lecture. Traditional pen-and-paper approaches limit the possibility of note sharing and collaboration between students. An alternative is offered by mobile applications for note-taking, which capitalize on the wide availability of smartphones. In contrast to generic note-taking apps, in this paper we propose a mobile application specifically conceived for educational settings, called EduNotes. Students can write notes associated to a specific lecture slide and share them with peers; they can also tag, rate, add to favorites or comment on notes. Additional features include live notifications, as well as advanced search, filtering and privacy options, which help reduce the overhead of note management. The paper also reports on a successful pilot study involving the use of EduNotes in real classroom settings.