Subject Matter:

Never Miss A Word
How many times have you wished for a gadget that lets you record notes, listen to a lecture or conference, jump back and forth pinpointing specific details, without having to wind and rewind cassette tapes?  What if you could record notes and audio online, easily follow along,  highlight key points, and not have to lug your computer to each meeting, or lecture?

Let me introduce you to the LiveScribe Pulse Smart Pen.   I pointedly reminded my teenagers that I would be the first person to play with this pen, and they couldn’t dash off with it to school.  My high school senior did test it, but that’s later in the review.

For $149.95, you get your money’s worth and then some with this innovative Smart Pen.  It was easy to operate, recorded remarkably well, and yes, let me jump around various notes with ease checking my words to the audio.  Worked great.

One Smart Pen
With the purchase of any Smart Pen, users receive:

• 1 GB Pulse Smart Pen and case
• 100 sheet dot paper spiral notebook
• USB charging cradle (pen dock)
• 3D recording headset
• Interactive demo card & Interactive stickers
• 3  replacement pen cartridges
• Getting Started Guide
• LiveScribe Desktop Software

Inside the pen is an infrared camera, recorder and computer.   Notes are written on the specialized paper that has a “dot-positioning” system.   Written notes and audio can be recorded in the pen, then downloaded from the pen dock onto a user’s LiveScribe web account.  LiveScribe provides each account 250 MB of file memory.

Inside the spiral notebook, LiveScribe provides various menus offering a calculator, keyboard, time/date/battery/storage status, and settings.  Each dot page also offers mini directions for operation.

Select Recording
In a lecture hall, discussions around your seat can muffle professors. And in conferences, there’s paper shuffling, across the table discussions, and scratching pens. The Smart Pen can be set on conference hall, lecture hall, or automatic to adjust for different surroundings.  The pen kit contains a 3D stereo recording headset that can tune out “outside” sounds, and focus on main speakers.

Audio recordings can also be slowed down, or sped up for comfortable listening.

Great for Special Education, Visual Learners and Language Arts
Wendy Demers has been teaching for over 33 years, and teaches 6th-8th grade science at the Edward Hynes Charter School in New Orleans, LA. She uses her Smart Pen to assist special ed students by providing her notes, diagrams and chart files online. Parents and special ed aids can download her audio and note files to supplement student notes.

Wendy appreciates how accessible her notes and diagrams are online. If students need extra notes, or have extended illnesses, her written and audio notes are readily accessible. Sometimes she walks around the classroom recording students explaining problems to other students, and replays their responses. Talk about sharing and learning! LiveScribe also provides bounded journals, which Wendy can use for her Leadership programs.

In addition, here are some teacher weblinks that demonstrate the Smart Pen’s flexibility:

Julie McLeod, Rountree Elementary School, Sixth Grade Math Teacher: 6th grade students recorded solving math problems.
Noelle Kreider, Rialto Unified School District, Technology Integration Coach: Technology Integration Coach capturing information, record observations, and capture drawings.
Kathleen Post, Pocono Christian Home Education Center, Algebra Teacher: Wiki-post of Mrs. Post sharing math notes to students.

Clear Calculus Notes
My high school senior dashed off two pages of Calculus notes.  She sat about 30-35 feet from her instructor (of course, back of the class).  Students were asking questions, scraping chairs on the floor, shuffling papers and whispering answers. Even with all the background noise and distance, the teacher’s lecture was loud and clear.  Volume can be controlled on individual computers, as well as from individual files on  the LiveScribe account.

Next, we downloaded her written and audio notes on the LiveScribe.com website. When registering, each user can create their own account.  As the audio played, her notes were highlighted (pretty neat!).  Users can choose three different functions to highlight notes while the audio is playing.  Click on another section of notes, and the audio played the teacher’s discussion at that specific written moment.  If there was a specific point she needed for the upcoming test, she could Text search through the LiveScribe Desktop function.

Notes can be made public or private using the online lock, or unlock function.  Notes can be sent emailed, downloaded as a pdf, shared on Facebook, sent as a link, embedded in a website, forum or blog, and shared within the LiveScribe community site.

Here are her Calculus notes embedded in this post.

Math 6/09
brought to you by Livescribe
“>Math Notes 6/09

Future Ideas
Play around with the Menu function. Future ideas are to provide games, audio textile graphics,  iPhone apps, maybe even a scientific talking calculator that will be accessible under Menu.  The Smart Pen will also offer Language interpretation apps for purchase (Spanish, Mandarin, Swedish, and more).

The Smart Pen, and specialized dot paper binders are currently available at various college bookstores, as well as Target stores, Target.com, Amazon.com , and Livescribe.com.

Overall, I was very pleased with the pen. For my senior, her last recorded comment “I’m totally getting one of these for college!” says it all.

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5.5 with Intel; Windows XP 32-bit SP; 600 MHz, 300 MB free disk space
Contact: Livescribe.com
Cost: $149.95 for 1 GB SmartPen; $199 for 2GB SmartPen; 4-Pack Notebook $19.95, 2-pack Black Lined Journal $24.95