I just read a wonderful article called “The Pen is Mightier Than the Keyboard” and want to pass on the link to you: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/22/0956797614524581.full.pdf+html
Past studies have looked at students’ capacity (or rather, lack thereof) for multitasking and the high rate of distraction when using laptops. I have certainly seen that first hand with my own students and that is why I always discouraged laptop use in my classroom (both for notetaking and for written homework assignments), except in the most serious cases of dysgraphia. The article cited above found that students who took notes on laptops experienced “shallower processing” which resulted in poorer performance on “conceptual questions than students who took noted longhand.”
