Smart Pen from Live Scribe

This just may be one of the most impressive implementations of technology for education since…. Hrrrm… Well, in a long time.

Via Tim Childers on the Tennessee DEN Blog

The official description is:

The Livescribe smartpen revolutionizes the act of writing by recording and linking audio to what you put on paper. Tap on words or drawings in your notes, and the smartpen replays recorded audio from the time you were writing. Transfer notes to your PC to backup, replay, and share them online.

But that doesn’t do it justice. You should really watch this video to a demo. Essentially it records what you’re listening to and notes what you write and when you write it. So if you click on a line of your notes, you’ll hear what the professor was saying at the time you wrote it. Of course, you can also rewind, fast forward, speed up and slow down.

This would have been a dream device for me when I was a student. I was always sloppy with my notes and would often spend hours trying to figure out why I circled three times “War/zoo analogy”. Seemed important at the time, but when it came time to study, I’d have to put on my Sherlock Holmes hat and try to figure out what the heck it meant. With this, I could double click, rewind a few minutes and just hear it again.

And that’s just the beginning. You can email the notes and audio, record and upload drawings, and much more. It does seem to use special paper, but it says on the website that the notebooks will cost about the same as a standard notebook.

For $200, I think it’s a pretty darn useful piece of tech. Can’t wait to see one in action.

8 Comments

Ben
11/14/2007

This sounds almost exactly like Leap Frog’s Fly Pen & Paper.

http://www.leapfrog.com/en/families/fly_fusion/ff_Pentop.html

While the Leap Frog pen doesn’t record, it does allow you to listen to recordings, play programs with specially printed paper, and upload text written with the pen to your computer.

Robert
11/14/2007

I got to tryout (i.e. play) with Leap Frog’s, and I must admit, it was pretty cool.
I love these ideas, but I like being able to grab ANY piece of paper, and ANY writing tool and take my notes. Something like this changes the way we think about the pen we carry around all day, and how we store our paper/notes.

Rachel205
11/23/2007

This pen is pretty ridiculous. I can’t seem to wrap my head around how it could possibly work. It is nice to see technology incorporporated with basic methods of technology. Placing a new, perhaps more effective, spin on taking notes with a pen and paper. It is nice to see how people who still prefer the ancient way of notes, as opposed to bringing a laptop to class, will benefit from this technology.

Lisa Hill
6/16/2009

I just finished posting my review of the LiveScribe Pulse Smart Pen (www.schooltechtalk.com). Believe what you read – it is a neat little, yet powerful gadget.

There are so many neat features – it’s well worth the $149.95 for the 1 GB Smart Pen.

Lisa
Lisa Hill´s last blog ..Learning.com’s Teacher Innovator Summer Camp

pam
8/1/2009

It is very impressive! My student used it in Algebra as I was giving notes he would record my voice on the paper…I always give hints that don’t make it to my own notes so even though I would scan my notes and make them available on my website, students would still be missing portions. I bought one to use this year in my class. It will allow me to record my voice as I am doing notes. Download the notes and make them available to students and parents. It is a very cool tool!!!

Luc J
8/18/2009

I’ve been using one for more than half a year now and still loving it. I believe that it’s the same guy from the Fly Pen who started Livescribe some time ago.
The technology behind those is the same, it’s based on the dot paper from Anoto. What’s nice about Livescribe is that they don’t rip you off, they even allow you to print your own paper instead of purchasing it from them.
Luc J´s last blog ..Livescribe Pulse Smartpen – Link Notes And Audio Recording

Smartpen
9/12/2009

I really really love this. Mine has just arrived from the States as they are cheaper than in Europe, thanks Amazon, and I have to say it does everything it says and also a bit more. So far I have been testing it in various situations and i have found it works exactly as descrbed. Now just thinking about how many more uses I could have for it
Smartpen´s last blog ..The Livescribe 2GB Pulse Smartpen