Cornell's Note Taking Method

[Jeremy Ruston]

I just came across this article discussing a notetaking technique taught at Cornell:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/cornell-perfect-way-to-take-notes-2014-12

The gist of it is:

"During a talk, you take notes on the right side of the margin, and write questions on the left side. Then, when it comes time to study, you can just cover the right side with a sheet of paper, leaving a bunch of questions on the left — creating a quiz."

It struck me as an interesting idea for TiddlyWiki. There's been interest in the past in using TiddlyWiki to create and present quizzes; perhaps we can explore creating the necessary features in a way that supports notetaking too.

Best wishes

Jeremy

--

Jeremy Ruston
mailto:jeremy...@gmail.com

[Jim Lehmer]

On Wednesday, December 31, 2014 9:14:31 AM UTC-6, Jeremy Ruston wrote:

It struck me as an interesting idea for TiddlyWiki. There's been interest in the past in using TiddlyWiki to create and present quizzes; perhaps we can explore creating the necessary features in a way that supports notetaking too.

Has anyone made a view template that can present tiddlers in columns? I am not talking about tables - I think that would be too unwieldy to do in real time while taking notes. But instead, since you can have multiple tiddlers open for edit at the same time, if there was a way to show the story river in two columns instead of one you could have two open at the same time for edit. Then when studying you wouldn't need to "cover up" the notes tiddler, but instead simply close it...

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Jim

Has anyone made a view template that can present tiddlers in columns? I am not talking about tables - I think that would be too unwieldy to do in real time while taking notes. But instead, since you can have multiple tiddlers open for edit at the same time, if there was a way to show the story river in two columns instead of one you could have two open at the same time for edit. Then when studying you wouldn't need to "cover up" the notes tiddler, but instead simply close it...

A multi-column view for the story river is something I'm interested in adding.

However, here it may be possible to approach it differently: one could imagine a split-screen arrangement like the current preview pane. One side for the notes, one side for the questions. The questions would be stored in a field.

Best wishes

Jeremy 

[Jim Lehmer]

On Wednesday, December 31, 2014 11:54:40 AM UTC-6, Jeremy Ruston wrote:

A multi-column view for the story river is something I'm interested in adding.

That would be good. On wide/HD displays especially the two column approach currently in place wastes a lot of real estate.

I can think of the following cases for having a more "grid-like" approach to TW:

1. n columns all for the story river, a la Tumblr or Pinterest.
2. Being able to "pin" certain things to certain columns. For example, it would be nice to have three columns (or more) with the following abilities:
a. The ability to have any one of them be the current title/control panel/TOC/utility column.
b. The ability to have any one of them be a set of "pinned" tiddlers that you always want open and displayed by default. This could be done via a filter or else even a new drop down action of "pin to this column" (which then means needing a way to open a specific tiddler in a specific column in the first place).
c. The ability to have any one of them be the story river.
 
I think a and b would end up being basically the left and right hand columns with the story river in the center, but architecturally I can't think of why it would need to be limited that way.

However, here it may be possible to approach it differently: one could imagine a split-screen arrangement like the current preview pane. One side for the notes, one side for the questions. The questions would be stored in a field.

Yeah, I thought about that, too.

[RichShumaker]

I know you are talking about breaking apart the TW Screen into multiple parts.

Here is a Word of Warning and I am sure you are aware of this.

If you do open 2 browsers tabs or windows and put content in each if you are working in Single Tiddler HTML Mode you will overwrite your data.

So when you save your [[Answers Tiddler]] in one browser tab or screen it will overwrite the [[Questions Tiddler]] of the other and vice versa.

As I said on the front I know you are talking about breaking a TiddlyWiki Screen apart and not having 2 TW open.

You can probably tell I recently did this mult-tab concept and lost some data.

Rich Shumaker

[Mat]

Very interesting stuff!!!

 Jeremy Ruston wrote:

 

a split-screen arrangement like the current preview pane. One side for the notes, one side for the questions. The questions would be stored in a field.

Yes, and the different questions would have to be vertically aligned with the notes.

Another issue for more "live" note taking is that it needs to have a faster workflow than the current procedure, in my opinion - or rather - in my experience. I would love to see some kind of permanently open edit mode tiddler at top. I did some sketches on this a while ago, here's one such:
 

The idea is to have a permanently open edit field instead of a create new button or at least in addition to one. You type straight into this edit field, first line could be for title, second for tags, third for text etc. The icons to the right mean "Done" (which shows the new tiddler in story river), "Done+close" and "Clear". This is inspired by Cintanotes (which I use when TW is not snappy enough)

Simon Bairds mGSD has something similar (see top row "quick add" link), which includes some really efficient ways to create multiple tiddlers and subtiddlers filled with content, in one go.

<:-)

[Jed Carty]

It shouldn't be too hard to have a template that uses a table and some divs to put two text editing fields next to each other. It could have a reveal widget so that when reviewing you can hide the notes and just see the questions. It would be a very simple implementation and I am sure that it can be improved upon, but It shoudn't be hard to make. I will try to get something together and up on inmysocks.tiddlyspot.com sometime soon. I like this idea.

[Mat]

Jeremy Ruston wrote:

 

A multi-column view for the story river is something I'm interested in adding.

There have been a few intresting layouts lately that treats the sidebar as a more active and parallel working space, perhaps most notably Felix' Taskgraph but also a recent suggestion by nicolas-spies (and to some extent my thoughts on a guide mode or edition).  I might bring this up as a separate topic, i.e the idea with parallel and interacting areas, partly because I see potential for it for small screens(!) but I bring it up here because Jeremy said

However, here it may be possible to approach it differently: one could imagine a split-screen arrangement like the current preview pane. One side for the notes, one side for the questions. The questions would be stored in a field.

...and I imagine instead two parallel rivers, perhaps with tiddlers appearing in pairs (and maybe tagged or sth to connect them) so you have actual and separate tiddlers for questions and answers instead of fields.

Just an idea.

<:-)



as food for though with regards to the Cornell idea and a thought to, instead of

[Jed Carty]

I put together a quick demo of one way this could work here http://inmysocks.tiddlyspot.com/#Note%20Taking%20Test
It doesn't have any searching ability or anything yet, but the notes and questions have fields indicating the class and date they are from, so searching etc. can be added later.

The problem I am running into is writing the notes and questions. Normally for things like this I use a temporary tiddler for editing and then when the new tiddler is created the content is copied to it, but in this case I want the notes and questions to be updated as you type.
Unfortunately I am displaying them using a list widget and a template that contains <$edit-text tiddler=<<currentTiddler>>/>, I expected this to work because the open tiddler wasn't the one being edited, but it appears that the tiddlers being transcluded using the list and template are being treated as if they are being edited directly and the problem of the tiddlers refreshing on every keystroke is happening, so typing notes isn't really possible.

I didn't expect this problem, and I can't think of anything I can do to fix this that doesn't require some sort of 'save notes' button. The reason I don't just have a single sheet for editing notes and questions for each day is that I would like to allow separate notes for separate topics during a single class to allow them to be easier to search for, and if I continue making this I will probably use the same interface for viewing notes so that you can easily edit them later if you want.

[Jeremy Ruston]

> If you do open 2 browsers tabs or windows and put content in each if you are working in Single Tiddler HTML Mode

Just to clarify, the proposals here do not involve opening the wiki in multiple browser tabs; we're just talking about a specialised layout for the main TiddlyWiki window.

> I put together a quick demo of one way this could work here http://inmysocks.tiddlyspot.com/#Note%20Taking%20Test

Excellent, very good to see that appear so quickly!

I've only had a quick look, but I suspect the problem is with this line in ClassNoteTemplate:

<$set name=currentTitle value={{!!title}}>

I think that the trouble is that this set widget will get refreshed whenever the current tiddler changes, because it has a dependency on the tiddler value.

I'll have a deeper look at it when I get a chance,

Best wishes

Jeremy

[Birthe C]

It is fun to read the thoughts about study notes, and I look forward to see more variants.
I also had a go. I know it is not the way everyone seems to want, more of a misunderstood and half baked cake. http://notestudy.tiddlyspot.com/


Birthe

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Jed

I've investigated the problem further. The issue is this set widget at the end of "Note Taking Test":

<$set name=qualifyId value=<<now "DDth mmm hh:mm:0ss">>>

Because the value of the "value" attribute changes each time it is evaluated, the entire widget is re-rendered at each refresh cycle. Removing that widget fixes the problem.

One trick that helped me debug the problem was to insert <<now "hh:mm:ss">> at crucial places within "Note Taking Test" so that you can "see" refreshes; whenever the macro call is re-rendered it gets updated to the current time. (Note that this trick works because the <<now>> macro doesn't force a refresh when the time changes).

Best wishes

Jeremy.

On Thu, Jan 1, 2015 at 5:17 AM, Jed Carty <inmy...@gmail.com> wrote:

[RichShumaker]

Love the active clock on your TiddlyWiki.

Rich Shumaker

[Jed Carty]

Jeremy,

Thank you! I managed to put some things together that work.
My fix for using time to give each note and question a unique name gives each note a title that shows the time the previous note was created because it doesn't look like you can set a fields value and then use the new value for something using a single button press.
Aside from inaccurate names it works. http://inmysocks.tiddlyspot.com/#Note%20Taking%20Test

My other solution is making a modified count widget that stores its output in a field, and having that count the number of notes for a class that currently exist and append that number on the end of the new note. This also works, and is a cleaner result than the time solution, but if you delete a note than it breaks everything. http://inmysocks.tiddlyspot.com/#Note%20Taking%20Test%202

I could make an action widget that increments a value in a field each time it is called, and have the new note and new question buttons increment a counting field each time they are pressed and never reset the value. I don't like that solution.

Does anyone have an opinion about what the note titles should be? Time seems like a reasonable way to keep them separate, but unless I can find a way around the problem now the times are going to be inaccurate. The other two could make managing notes and questions difficult in the future because they rely on either notes and questions never being deleted or a field never being reset.

[Alberto Molina]

Hi Jeremy,

The problem I am running into is writing the notes and questions. Normally for things like this I use a temporary tiddler for editing and then when the new tiddler is created the content is copied to it, but in this case I want the notes and questions to be updated as you type.
Unfortunately I am displaying them using a list widget and a template that contains <$edit-text tiddler=<<currentTiddler>>/>, I expected this to work because the open tiddler wasn't the one being edited, but it appears that the tiddlers being transcluded using the list and template are being treated as if they are being edited directly and the problem of the tiddlers refreshing on every keystroke is happening, so typing notes isn't really possible.

You can reproduce Jed's problem, loose of focus at each keystroke using a transcluded tiddler, with something as simple as that:

Create a new tiddler with the following content:

<$tiddler tiddler="$:/temp/test">

<$edit-text field="text" default="" tag="input"/>

</$tiddler>

Regards,

Alberto

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Alberto

> You can reproduce Jed's problem, loose of focus at each keystroke using a transcluded tiddler, with something as simple as that:

Yes, indeed, it's the same pattern causing the issue: an ancestor widget of the edit-text widget is being refreshed on each keypress. Jed's problem (which is now resolved) was subtler because the refresh was being caused by the passage of time and the  <<now>> macro.

Best wishes

Jeremy.

Create a new tiddler with the following content:

<$tiddler tiddler="$:/temp/test">

<$edit-text field="text" default="" tag="input"/>

</$tiddler>

Regards,

Alberto

[David Gifford]

Hi everyone

Recovering from vacation! Photos in the first five or six sets here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/giffmex/sets/ if that is your thing.

I like the Cornell experiments that those of you linked to in this thread. Here is a simpler method: Just hit the new here button in a tiddler, and add notes that way.

http://giffmex.org/experiments/cornell.html

The tiddler title acts as the question, and is viewed as a link in the left column with a limited width; the notes are transcluded as a block to the right.

As you are taking the note, or even later, you can change the title so that the question conforms to the notes.

Not sure I got the CSS right, was shooting for no borders except the right border of the th. Did this in a hurry.

Dave

[Birthe C]

Hi David Gifford,

You are the master for sure. User friendly, no learning curve to use, and it will be very fast to take notes that way, and easy to edit them afterwards for links, images or whatever. I also think that your idea will the best we have seen yet for smaller screens.
I would use the new journal here button, as the questions are written later on.


Birthe

[David Gifford]

Aw thanks for the kind words, Birthe. Another advantage is that it only uses two small tiddlers. A DISadvantage I can see is that if you create your Cornell tiddler by hitting a new here button or new journal button, there will be a big mess in the tiddler in which you hit the new here button, because you will have a Cornell within a Cornell. The solution is to create the Cornell tiddlers via links rather than new here buttons. But to tell new people that and have them remember is not easy and will be counterintuitive for them if the new here button comes instinctively to them.

Dave

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David Gifford
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[Shash]

Hi Jeremy,

On Wednesday, December 31, 2014 11:24:40 PM UTC+5:30, Jeremy Ruston wrote:

Hi Jim

Has anyone made a view template that can present tiddlers in columns? I am not talking about tables - I think that would be too unwieldy to do in real time while taking notes. But instead, since you can have multiple tiddlers open for edit at the same time, if there was a way to show the story river in two columns instead of one you could have two open at the same time for edit. Then when studying you wouldn't need to "cover up" the notes tiddler, but instead simply close it...

A multi-column view for the story river is something I'm interested in adding.

 

I reckon a multi-column view for the story river would be really useful for some. It is one of the feature I always longed for with TW. 

 

However, here it may be possible to approach it differently: one could imagine a split-screen arrangement like the current preview pane. One side for the notes, one side for the questions. The questions would be stored in a field.

Best wishes

Jeremy 

--

Jeremy Ruston
mailto:jeremy...@gmail.com

Shash