5 ms·

Glad to know I am not the only parent who feels this way. On a personal note, I am one of those people who highlights sections of text books using different co

Glad to know I am not the only parent who feels this way. On a personal note, I am one of those people who highlights sections of text books using different coloured markers and scribbled notes on the margins. During my final exam time, my revision of materials was very efficient. I am not sure how to teach my kids these skills.

lugu 2y ago
You can try to teach them to use a good pdf reader. At work there are a lot of Google doc to review. I always convert them to PDF so that I can have private annotations, named bookmarks and highlights of different colors (I can even diff between two versions). This way I am building a collection of PDF I can locally search. On this topic, computers are great to make flashcards. Instead of the paragrahed notes, when learning material, I am taking note in the form of short Q&A using markdown flashcards. Works great for me. Easy to review efficiently, easy to extend. This said, I am not sure this is adapted to kids. Hope you share your skills to your kids.
- reflexco 2y ago
  What's your good pdf reader of choice? And do you use any software to organize your collection, or just the filesystem?
  - elashri 2y ago
    Not the same person but I would suggest using zotero for this purpose. This is one of the best use case of zotero (try zotero 7 beta). Combined with its iPad app you will find it can tick all your requirements.
    - halgir 2y ago
      Massive +1 to Zotero. And 7 is out of beta now! I recently went back to school and started using Zotero again. Reading and annotating books and papers on iPad, and then having access to all of my notes when writing on desktop is such a simple but amazing feature.
  - skydhash 2y ago
    On Linux, I use zathura (but I rarely annotate my PDFs and I use my iPad for that). On macOS, I used Preview (it was good enough) and PDF Expert (Not the subscription version) for editing pages and outline. On the iPad, I begrudgingly use Documents (by readdle). My PDF are managed by Calibre, but I export various subsets to the file system, so I can find them easily (on the network).
    - umbra07 2y ago
      I highly recommend trying out sioyek (as a zathura replacement). it has a bunch of features that make it even more suitable for consuming technical papers/textbooks - such as a significantly faster search & index, an auto generated table of contents, highlights, and portals.
  - umbra07 2y ago
    sioyek. its featureset is specifically focused on digesting textbook/academic articles/technical papers.
- photonthug 2y ago
  > use a good pdf reader.. markdown flash cards Ever had the experience that your favorite shoes or watch is discontinued by the manufacturer? It sucks because you’re back on the consumer treadmill again, wasting time and money on things that aren’t as good and struggling with an annoying distraction that previously did not exist while you try to find something that works for you again. Software churn is just like this, only much worse. It should/could have been different, but it’s not. So no, I don’t really think we should take away all books, buttons, and knobs that offer a reasonably consistent user experience and replace everything we can with software and tablets. At least not until software learns to behave. Reading is as basic as tying your shoes. Would you really want SV PMs in charge of revolutionizing the shoe-tying experience every quarter, or dropping updates on you that change the place you’ve always stored your shoes?
  - chrisandchris 2y ago
    Exactly. It was perfectly fine, I loved it. It worked very well. They took it away, now I have to re-learn how to do it what I already knew with somethibg that I also have to pay for. Sometimes we should just keep things as they are and stop looking for the next thing.
    - photonthug 2y ago
      Relearning is fine if that’s on the way to a new stable state, but I just don’t see that happening. The fact that people are discussing the best pdf reader after like 2+ decades of widespread usage, or the fact that signing a pdf often means rebooting into a different OS or using a cloud service that just wants a look at what kind of stuff you’re signing just totally destroys the idea that this tech is working for us. Further, does anyone believe that pdfs are going to fix something like textbook costs? You will still pay too much for something that you don’t really own now and cannot share or loan out, etc. Savings for the publisher or distributor cabals are not going to find their way to end users, or if they do then this will certainly be a temporary situation. They already know how much they can charge and get away with it, so… I’m far from a Luddite, but just know that tech is great to the extent that it gets out of the way and lets us focus on things we care about. Corporate tech is the opposite though, because it always wants engagement, feeding, maintenance. PDFs and chrome books that empty out your backpack might look like a convenience for students but who really benefits? The people that push Chromebooks get a captive audience of tax payers and children who are future android fans, the distributors that can empty their warehouses and fire a forklift driver, etc. Business as usual.. everyone should think critically about it when someone is telling them “these changes are for your own good”.

lugu 2y ago

You can try to teach them to use a good pdf reader. At work there are a lot of Google doc to review. I always convert them to PDF so that I can have private annotations, named bookmarks and highlights of different colors (I can even diff between two versions). This way I am building a collection of PDF I can locally search. On this topic, computers are great to make flashcards. Instead of the paragrahed notes, when learning material, I am taking note in the form of short Q&A using markdown flashcards. Works great for me. Easy to review efficiently, easy to extend. This said, I am not sure this is adapted to kids. Hope you share your skills to your kids.

reflexco 2y ago
What's your good pdf reader of choice? And do you use any software to organize your collection, or just the filesystem?
- elashri 2y ago
  Not the same person but I would suggest using zotero for this purpose. This is one of the best use case of zotero (try zotero 7 beta). Combined with its iPad app you will find it can tick all your requirements.
  - halgir 2y ago
    Massive +1 to Zotero. And 7 is out of beta now! I recently went back to school and started using Zotero again. Reading and annotating books and papers on iPad, and then having access to all of my notes when writing on desktop is such a simple but amazing feature.
- skydhash 2y ago
  On Linux, I use zathura (but I rarely annotate my PDFs and I use my iPad for that). On macOS, I used Preview (it was good enough) and PDF Expert (Not the subscription version) for editing pages and outline. On the iPad, I begrudgingly use Documents (by readdle). My PDF are managed by Calibre, but I export various subsets to the file system, so I can find them easily (on the network).
  - umbra07 2y ago
    I highly recommend trying out sioyek (as a zathura replacement). it has a bunch of features that make it even more suitable for consuming technical papers/textbooks - such as a significantly faster search & index, an auto generated table of contents, highlights, and portals.
- umbra07 2y ago
  sioyek. its featureset is specifically focused on digesting textbook/academic articles/technical papers.
photonthug 2y ago
> use a good pdf reader.. markdown flash cards Ever had the experience that your favorite shoes or watch is discontinued by the manufacturer? It sucks because you’re back on the consumer treadmill again, wasting time and money on things that aren’t as good and struggling with an annoying distraction that previously did not exist while you try to find something that works for you again. Software churn is just like this, only much worse. It should/could have been different, but it’s not. So no, I don’t really think we should take away all books, buttons, and knobs that offer a reasonably consistent user experience and replace everything we can with software and tablets. At least not until software learns to behave. Reading is as basic as tying your shoes. Would you really want SV PMs in charge of revolutionizing the shoe-tying experience every quarter, or dropping updates on you that change the place you’ve always stored your shoes?
- chrisandchris 2y ago
  Exactly. It was perfectly fine, I loved it. It worked very well. They took it away, now I have to re-learn how to do it what I already knew with somethibg that I also have to pay for. Sometimes we should just keep things as they are and stop looking for the next thing.
  - photonthug 2y ago
    Relearning is fine if that’s on the way to a new stable state, but I just don’t see that happening. The fact that people are discussing the best pdf reader after like 2+ decades of widespread usage, or the fact that signing a pdf often means rebooting into a different OS or using a cloud service that just wants a look at what kind of stuff you’re signing just totally destroys the idea that this tech is working for us. Further, does anyone believe that pdfs are going to fix something like textbook costs? You will still pay too much for something that you don’t really own now and cannot share or loan out, etc. Savings for the publisher or distributor cabals are not going to find their way to end users, or if they do then this will certainly be a temporary situation. They already know how much they can charge and get away with it, so… I’m far from a Luddite, but just know that tech is great to the extent that it gets out of the way and lets us focus on things we care about. Corporate tech is the opposite though, because it always wants engagement, feeding, maintenance. PDFs and chrome books that empty out your backpack might look like a convenience for students but who really benefits? The people that push Chromebooks get a captive audience of tax payers and children who are future android fans, the distributors that can empty their warehouses and fire a forklift driver, etc. Business as usual.. everyone should think critically about it when someone is telling them “these changes are for your own good”.