I am currently attending PSU (Portland State University) and, as most college students will know, not only is it difficult to take notes at the speed in which some professors may speak, it is nearly impossible to recall everything they have said… until now…
The Livescribe pen is amazing. It records audio (yes, the pen itself) that really captures the sound from an entire room very well. Of course, the more personal the scenario and the less ambient noise the better, but this pen works very well in a classroom. If it only recorded audio, this pen would be amazing, but it records what you write as the audio (sounds) happen. After recording, you can upload the sound and notes to your PC. Once loaded, you can watch or observe every pen stroke as the original audio plays. Even further, the software uses OCR (optical character recognition) technology and you can search through the handwritten notes which are now loaded on the PC. You can take the original note book and just touch a spot on the notebook and the sound plays that matches that exact moment in time. In addition, you can touch a spot in the already written notes (where you couldn’t possibly keep up with an instructor) and re-listen to the speech… here is the cool part… you can add additional notes that are synchronized to the audio. Not only that, you can upload the result to the web and share it with others (privately or publicly).
Here is my very first class and my first day using the pen:
http://www.livescribe.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/LDApp.woa/wa/MLSOverviewPage?sid=NxjZSxcW1zsl
The beginning or first page is not the best example: the instructor was talking about the results of an exam and I was writing notes related to a transparency on the screen. I do think it shows off some usefulness for the pen.
Go to their web site: www.livescribe.com
Watch the demos.
Get the darn thing!
