While a pen and paper always work great in a school environment, sometimes you want to digitize your notes and memos. Let’s take a look at some good options for electronic note-taking.
Google Keep (for Android, iOS, and web, free)
Google Keep aims to do one thing and to do that one thing better than anyone. With Google Keep, you can take simple notes on Android and iOS devices, and the web, effortlessly.
– Pros: Great for short notes and to-do lists
– Cons: Hard to organize notes once you have a handful of them
Notion (for Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows, free with paid options)
The goal of Notion is to do everything in one place, so you can build your simple database, collaborate with other people and track their changes, and use simple annotations to style your notes.
– Pros: From a database to simple notes, you can keep everything in one place
– Cons: Easy to hit usage limit in the free plan
Notability (for iOS and Mac, paid version only)
Notability supports new iPads with Apple Pencils, giving you a similar experience to using a real pen to take notes. It also supports PDF templates, so you can write on PDF-exported presentation files during classes.
– Pros: If you have iPad with Apple Pencil support, this is a must
– Cons: Only works on Mac platforms
OneNote (for Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows, free)
Being part of Office suites, OneNote provides the widest range of functionality, with the familiar UI of Office. You can also use it without purchasing Office (which is free for Camosun students anyways), so it’s more approachable.
– Pros: Very close to taking and organizing notes on paper
– Cons: Feels a little heavy and slow if all you want is simple note-taking
EverNote (for Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows, free with paid options)
Once the most popular note-taking app, EverNote is still around. EverNote used to be one of the popular choices for clipping web contents and making notes; it now provides many more functionalities.
– Pros: Easy to clip web pages
– Cons: Paid plans can be a bit too much of a burden for students
You can’t go too wrong with any of these options. Most of them provide a trial or free plan, so checking them out before committing is always a good way to start.