LiveScribe+Pencast

An exciting new technology that my friend Jen and I experimented with was [|Livescribe]. Livescribe is just one of the types of paper-based computing platforms consisting of a smartpen, paper, software applications, and developer tools that essentially allows you to record notes and upload them to your computer. With the special pen and paper this technology can change your writing into computer files as a pdf, jpeg, or other types of documents as well as contain recorded audio. The uses for Livescribe are endless in any career setting, especially in education. Jen and I planned to become familiar with this technology and create a pencast.

A pencast is like a podcast or screencast, but much smaller and focuses only on written text and audio. A pencast is almost like a virtual blackboard experience. For our project we took one of MDY's Challenge Problems from Math 205 and solved it using the LiveScribe equipment. It was a little frustrating and took a little longer than we expected at the beginning to download the program and gain access to the pen since it had a previous user. Jen and I were very impressed with the pen's ability to recognize things that we had already written and pause, stop, etc. just by touching the specified areas of the paper. It was amazing! We had a lot of fun recording our pencast. Jen wrote everything while I spoke and explained the problem and solution. We did this because we both wanted to be invloved in the pencast, however in the future we feel it would be better if just one person writes and speaks to give the viewers a video that flows more smoothly. I also think it is important to speak with expression while recording because although I felt like I was seaking clearly and not monatone, when we played the audio back, I was a little bored listening.

This technology can be very beneficial for students either if they have one themselves and can use it in the classroom, in high school perhaps, or if their teacher chooses to make pencasts and use it as a teaching tool. It is also not incredibly expensive to purchase this technology, in fact prices range anywhere from 70-200 dollars depending on the quality and features of the pen and tools it comes with. The LiveScribe program is available for free download on their website online.

The audio file and pdf of pencast: