How to Record Lectures and Turn Them into Study Notes

A lecture asks you to do two things at once: listen and write. The trouble is that nobody does both well. If you focus on writing, the professor’s argument slips past. If you focus on listening, your notes are thin, and before the exam you have nothing to study from.

The fix: record the lecture, put your attention on listening, and build your notes afterwards from the transcript and an AI summary. This guide walks through how, step by step.

First: get permission

Before recording a lecture, ask the instructor. Many are fine with it, especially when you explain it is for personal study. Some universities have their own recording policies, so find out what yours says. Do not share the recording publicly: the instructor has rights over their material, and other people in the room have privacy.

Step 1. Record the lecture

Open the Dicta app on your phone and start a new recording. Put the phone as close to the instructor as you can, such as the front rows or the front of the desk. In a large lecture hall, distance noticeably hurts audio quality.

Tips:

• check your battery and plug in if you need to;
• switch the phone to Do Not Disturb so a call does not interrupt the recording;
• make sure you have free storage on the phone;
• rustling paper and bumping the desk create noise, so avoid touching the phone.

Step 2. Turn it into text

Dicta transcribes the recording. It handles Uzbek, Russian, English, and Arabic, which is handy in multilingual classrooms: for example, when a lecturer speaks Uzbek but uses Russian or English terminology, it still works (check difficult terms in the result).

If you recorded somewhere else, such as another app or a voice recorder, you can upload the audio or video file to Dicta. The transcript and summary are prepared the same way. The same approach works if you want to transcribe a lecture someone else recorded with permission.

Step 3. Build notes from the AI summary

A transcript is long and conversational. Good notes are short and organized. The AI summary breaks the lecture into topics, and from there you can:

1. Take the topic list. It works as an outline of the lecture.
2. Mark key definitions and formulas. Copy them straight from the transcript and check them against your textbook.
3. Pull out assignments. Statements like “Read chapter 3 before next week” may show up in the action items section.
4. Write a list of questions. Mark what you did not understand and ask the instructor later.

Step 4. Review with AI chat

Dicta’s AI chat lets you ask questions about your past recordings. For example:

• “Which three methods were mentioned in this lecture?”
• “What did the professor say about the exam?”
• “Briefly explain the part about supply and demand in economics.”

This makes it much easier to revisit a semester’s worth of material before exams. Just compare the answers with your textbook and your own notes, because AI can make mistakes.

Working in a group

When several students in a group record the same lecture, audio quality and coverage improve. In “Round table” mode, each person records on their own phone and Dicta merges the recordings. It suits seminars, group project discussions, and lab sessions especially well.

Online classes

If a remote class runs on Zoom or Google Meet, you can send the Dicta bot to the class. It records the session and prepares a transcript and summary. The host (the instructor) may need to admit the bot, so ask them first.

Common mistakes

• “I recorded everything, I will listen later.” A recording is not a set of notes. Read the transcript and condense it, otherwise one hour of listening turns into three hours of work.
• Relying only on the AI summary. Check terms, formulas, and dates.
• Sharing the recording. Use it for yourself only, and do not send it to others unless the instructor allows it.
• Poor audio. If the phone is in your bag or far from the speaker, the result will be poor, and so will the transcription.

A short plan

1. Ask the instructor for permission.
2. Start the recording at the beginning of the lecture.
3. During the lecture, listen instead of typing; only mark questions and key moments.
4. In the evening, open the transcript and AI summary and spend 15 minutes turning them into organized notes.
5. Before exams, review with AI chat.

Conclusion

Recording lectures improves how well you listen and cuts the time it takes to make notes. Signing up for Dicta is free: try it in your next lecture and see the difference.