Notetaking is an essential skill for students. Traditionally, students
have kept notes by hand — but now that almost everyone has a smartphone
with them, it’s more common to create audio recordings of class sessions
to review later. Additionally, many classes are now taught online using
e-learning tools, and students are often able to access video recordings of
their online lectures to review as they need.However, while having a recording gives
you a full account of the class session, the downside is that you miss
out on being able to actually see your notes in front of you. When you
only have an audio or video recording that you have to scroll through,
it can be very difficult to find exactly the information you need when
you need it. To get around this issue, many students transcribe their self-recorded
lectures or video classes so they have a text copy of the class session.
However, fast and accurate transcription is a specialized skill in itself,
and not every student has the time or ability to transcribe their notes.
That’s where Maestra comes in. Students can use Maestra’s AI-powered audio-to-text converter to
accurately transcribe their recorded notes in over 80 languages with just
the press of a button. You can even export your finished transcriptions,
complete with timestamps and labeled speakers, in a variety of file formats
like Word documents, PDFs, plain text, and more. Let’s explore some of
the ways you can use the power of AI to transcribe your recordings for
better note-taking:
1. You Can Pay Better Attention in Class
Handwriting notes requires you to divide your attention between what you’re
writing down and what’s happening around you in class. Recording lectures
or discussions and automatically transcribing them later with a tool like
Maestra frees you up to fully engage with the content by following along
visually, asking questions, or participating more fully in group discussions.
2. You Can Improve the Accuracy of Your Notes
When you’re handwriting notes, it’s easy to miss important details because
you only have time to jot down the most important points. Even if you record
a lecture and transcribe it later by hand, it’s still very easy to make
transcription errors and end up with inaccurate notes. This is especially
true if you’re recording a class discussion with multiple people talking
over one another or if the recording takes place in a large lecture hall.
3. You Can Save Time
Taking accurate notes by hand or transcribing a recorded lecture is extremely
time consuming. If you’re keeping notes during class, you’ll need to race
to keep up. If you’re transcribing a recording afterwards, you’ll likely
have hours of work ahead of you to get a full, accurate transcription of
the entire class session. However, with the help of an AI transcription
tool like Maestra, you can turn your recordings into accurate transcriptions
almost instantly — which will speed up your note-taking enormously.
4. You Can Stay More Organized
Having a clean, accurate transcription of an entire class session makes
it easier to break the information down at your own pace later. For example,
you can review your transcription and pick out key points with which to
build a mind map or
highlight the parts you don’t understand and prepare a list of questions
to ask at your next class session. It’s much harder to approach studying
in an organized manner when you only have a recording or hand-written notes
that were taken in haste.
5. You Can Review Your Notes Right Away
One of the best times to go over your notes is shortly after the class
session while the information is still fresh in your mind. If you wait
for days or weeks before you revisit the material, you will have already
forgotten much of it, whereas reviewing right away solidifies the knowledge.
It’s difficult to review promptly if you have to wait to have your notes
transcribed, but Maestra’s AI transcription works quickly so you can access
your notes immediately.
6. You Can Share Your Notes Easily
Having AI-generated transcriptions of your lectures or class discussions
will make you a huge help at group study sessions. Instead of comparing
potentially conflicting notes that different group members took down quickly
by hand, you can have an authoritative transcript of exactly what was covered
in class. This lets you spend less time getting everyone’s notes aligned
and more time going over the material.
7. You Can Save Money
Many students pay to have their lecture notes professionally transcribed.
Professional transcribers often charge upwards of $100 per hour of audio
recording. With an AI-powered tool like Maestra, you can have your notes
transcribed at a faster pace for just $10 per hour of audio.
Improve Your Note-Taking With Maestra
If you’re looking for a better way to transcribe your recordings and improve
your note-taking, Maestra might just be the perfect solution. Try our
audio-to-text transcription for free or request a demo today!