Notetaking approaches
Whether a class or meeting is taking place on-site or remotely, it is important to consider options for taking and sharing notes. While there are some students who have eligibility for notetaking support as an academic accommodation, there are also many more people who will benefit from a good note taking and sharing plan.
Depending on if a remote meeting is part of a course, or a standalone meeting, consider where you might post the notes to ensure they can be found by those who were able to participate directly, as well as those who might have had connection problems or attendance limitations.
Prioritizing AEDR support for different types of meetings
- The first priority for AEDR will be any course in which there is an active accommodation request for notetaking support.
- Our next priority will be for meetings in which there is critical information being shared, and there is a concern from the facilitator about being able to capture information effectively in the absence of additional notetaking support. Depending on volume, Accessible Ed & Disability Resources will triage and prioritize the best we can.
Options people can put in place on their own
- Share agenda and presentation materials in advance – this way participants can review (whether in advance or after the fact).
- Assign a notetaker – or multiple notetakers – who can take notes during the meeting and share their notes with everyone.
- Record the session – so people have the chance to review and take notes as needed.
- Automatic transcription is an option to provide live transcription or captions through artificial intelligence. There are typically recognition errors, and there are differences between platforms in terms of the ability to edit or correct errors.
- In Google the automatic captions are available by default, and tactiq.io can be used to create a transcript saved to Google Drive.
- Google Gemini is available for college employees and can be used in a couple of different ways. For example:
- In Google Meet, if you are the meeting host, you can have Gemini create a transcript and notes directly. You can choose to have the notes and transcript shared with all attendees (attached to the meeting invitation) or have them shared with only the host. This support page has a short video and instructions.
- For in-person meetings you can use Live Transcribe (android app) then send the transcript to your google drive, where Gemini can be asked to review the transcript and generate notes. Live Transcribe does not save the transcript by default, but this can be adjusted in the settings.
- In Zoom, automatic captions and interactive live transcripts have to be enabled by the host – more information is available through cap@pcc.edu.
- Zoom AI Companion also needs to be enabled by the meeting host. If employees don’t see this option enabled in your settings, email dlhelp@pcc.edu
- Anyone using recording, transcribing, and note generating tools should review settings carefully, and make choices accordingly.
Options Accessible Ed & Disability Resources can help to facilitate
- Students using automatic transcription tools to record class sessions as a notetaking strategy should typically also have “Technology Use” on their Faculty Notification letters. This alerts instructor that technology will be used in class for notetaking.
- Messenger Pigeon is a paid service that uses humans to generate written notes from audio recordings (not a full transcript).
- Accessibility aides are AEDR employees who ensure notes are available when other options won’t work well. Aides can:
- attend meetings to take notes live during the event,
- prepare notes from a recording, or
- help manage an Automatic Transcription service.
Consultation appointments
We are happy to connect and collaborate. The tech group number is 971-PCC-TECH (971-722-8324) and the email is access-tech-group@pcc.edu.