Taking Lecture/Course notes - How do you prefer to do this?

[speechfan222]

I normally prefer to take notes in a spiral notebook and have one for each course. That way, all of the course notes are together and are separated by each class. Once I completed by undergrad degree, I now have quite a stack of spiral notebooks. 

I usually don't prefer loose-leaf paper in a 3 ring binder because, even with tabs, it's hard to separate notes for each course. And once the pages are turned several times, they begin to tear and fall out. 

I'm starting an online Masters program in August, so there won't be too many lectures (I don't think) to take notes from. I'll mostly be taking my own notes. 

I'm curious, how does everyone prefer to take course notes? I'm trying to determine the best, convenient way, to take notes. Let me know! 

[maelia8]

I take notes during lecture or discussion on my laptop in the (free) Evernote program so that my notes are completely searchable, taggable, and synced across all devices in the cloud. The program also has the ability to link to bibliographical information of works mentioned in lecture, and I often download and attach the lecture slides as well if they are offered by the instructor on the course website. I strongly dislike paper weighing me down (especially since I travel a lot, and paper notebooks tend to wear down with time), and have thus chosen to go fully digital with my life (aside from the most vital ID/medical/professional documents and my private diaries). i certainly think this is the most convenient and safest way to store and and organize notes, and makes looking through notes for research paper writing or exam prep a cinch (saves lots of time). However, I'm a person who types very quickly and hates handwriting, so I'm certainly biased in favor of digital methods.