My first two posts have been targeted at student teams and software or gadgets that would make their lives more productive.  While this product does have a sharing component, I haven’t used it so I am going to focus on how it might be used by a single student.

As an undergrad, I was dutiful about attending lectures.  I much preferred going to class than reading the book and it was a method that worked for me.  I would sit, always in the second row, and take notes.  Early on this was done using pen & paper and later straight into my laptop.  The thing that frustrated me about taking notes into my laptop was it wasn’t easy to add a diagram on the fly and, let me tell you, Dr. Wells economics course was full of diagrams.  |X

Enter the Pulse

The Pulse Smartpen is an amazing device from a company called Livescribe.  At around 5/8″ thick, it is larger than your normal pen but, for me, fits comfortably and isn’t hard to use continuously during an hour-long meeting.

What makes the Pulse the perfect tool for students is that everything you write into its special notebooks (more on those later) is captured by a tiny camera in its nose.  The result is a perfect digital copy of your notes – words, diagrams and everything – ready for download into your Mac or Windows machine as soon as you dock the pen.

To be clear, the software included with the Pulse doesn’t convert your writing into typed text.  It displays exactly what you wrote – how you wrote it.  But the LiveScribe desktop software does do handwriting recognition and so your notes become searchable.  Even with my chicken scratch, the software is regularly able to find terms using the search.

What Did She Say?

Ever taken a look at your notes before an exam and wonder what the heck the instructor was saying when you wrote them?  The Pulse eliminates this problem forever with its built-in audio recorder.  Here is the scenario:

• Walk into class, open your Livescribe notebook and click the record icon located on the bottom of every page.
• Take your notes, draw your diagrams and basically forget that your pen is anything more than a writing device.
• At the end of class, click the stop icon.

When it comes time to review your notes, you can click anywhere on the page and it will start playing the audio from when you wrote that portion of your notes.  It is an immediate index of the entire lecture.  If you have docked your pen to your computer, both the notes and the audio are available in the application that comes with the pen.  Click any where in the notes and the audio starts playing in sync with when you wrote that note.

Dot Paper – How The Magic Happens

Included in the box when I bought my Pulse was a standard 1-subject notebook like those used on every high school and college campus.  The paper that makes up the notebook however is not so standard.  Printed lightly across the entire page are micro-dots.  The pattern of the micro-dots is so unique that the Pulse knows what notebook, page and line I am on when I write.

Livescribe offers 1-subject notebooks in a four pack for $20 and the black journal edition in a two pack for $25.  The journals are similar in design to another favorite of mine, the Moleskine notebook.  Notebooks and journals are numbered, with 1-8 currently available in both styles.  Remember that the micro-dots identify the notebook the page is from, so you don’t want to be using two #1 notebooks at the same time.

The Windows version of the Livescribe software allows you to print your own micro-dot paper, so you aren’t beholden to the company for refills.  I am a Mac user, so I haven’t had this option.

The battery is built-in and rechargeable.  It charges on the included dock.  They really thought each piece of the design through – the dock is magnetic so the pen snaps into place right on the contacts for sync and charging.

Dollars and Cents

We have already talked about the cost of the paper.  Like a printer ink cartridge refill, you need to have it to make the device work.  The company seems to have regular specials – buy the pen, get 4 free notebooks, buy a notebook get a ink refill and so on.

Amazon has the 2GB pen for $170 and the 1GB edition for $130.  I was cheap and bought the 1GB edition and haven’t run out of space yet.  I don’t use the audio feature a whole lot so most of my notes are just the capture of what I wrote.

Your recurring costs will be the notebooks or journals and pen refills.

Final Thoughts

I can’t imagine walking into a class with an ordinary pen & paper now that I have used the Pulse.  That technology is dead to me.  I like my notes available to me in a form that I can search and the audio capability is great when I use it.  There is a point of etiquette that needs to be noted however – especially if you are using the Pulse in a meeting rather than an open classroom.  You need to let folks know that you are recording.  You can pause the recording if you want to take the meeting off-the-record and the pen makes appropriate noises to show that you have.  This thing isn’t a spy gadget.  It is an amazing productivity tool that should make the Number 2 pencil very nervous.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 30th, 2009 at 6:01 pm and is filed under For Students, Gadget, Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.