What do you see when you look out at your students?  Do you see them writing down everything you write and everything you say?  How does it make you feel?  Honored, proud, powerful?

What if those same students then put those notes online and share them with the rest of the class, or the world?  What if they sold those notes to a note-selling business like Einstein’s Notes, for profit?  Would you be okay with that?

Michael Moulton, a University of Florida professor felt violated when it happened to him.  So much so, that he filed a lawsuit in 2008.  An article in The Chronicle of Higher Ed shows Moulton’s frustration with students who participate in these activities.

A more recent altercation took place at San Jose State University.  Here, it was determined that the student does have the right to display homework results online.

Many professors invite the use of shared notes amongst classmates.  They see it as an opportunity for collaborative study.  A research paper by DeZure, Kaplan & Deerman indicates that  students (in general) fail to record 40% of the important points in a typical lecture.  First-year students, on average, do considerably worse.

Whatever your take on this, there are several note taking and sharing sites available today.

Here are just a few sites available for free:

• NoteMesh — this site seems like the most honest of the bunch in that students collaborate to build a set of good notes and there is no profit to be made.  Students have to  indicate their college/university and add their classes to their profile upon registering.  Students in the same class can then post and edit their own notes.  Since each class uses a wiki, students are able to view and edit their peers notes as well.  Like most wikis, there is a “history feature” which allows you to remove any changes if necessary.  The real question, in my mind, is whether the site has build in LaTex compatibility so that math notes can be shared (I doubt it, as this is not addressed anywhere in the FAQs).

• Notecentric — this site is similar to NoteMesh but also gives the user the ability to “spy” on other classes.

• Knetwit – students can (try to) make money off their class notes (one muses to oneself why the student without notes does not just pick up and read their textbook instead)

• Sharenotes –  students (or presumably the professor) can post notes and charge by the download if you’d like.  You can also browse institutions  for specific notes on specific classes.  Some notes are shared free of charge.  Should professors really be charging for notes?  I think not.  Nor should students, though.
  

• University Notes — in addition to sharing notes and/or tests nationwide, students can also rate their professors here and use the on-site blog.

Here are some links to other blog posts / articles on this topic in case you are, like us, morbidly fascinated with this industry that is emerging around the economy of notes:

• The corridor of uncertainty
• Taking notes beyond the classroom
• Sharing your notes online – and getting paid for it
• Finished with your exam? Good, now share it.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Math Technology to Engage, Delight, and Excite
• NYT Opinionator Series about Math
• Community Site for Algebra Activities
• Math ELITEs (Classrooms for Active Mathematics)
• Watch my AMATYC 2009 Presentation

This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Classroom Life, eLearning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.