math

In doing some research for an instructor on how to show and share mathematical equations simply and quickly in an online environment I found a digital pen solution that seems to have it all.

The LiveScribe Echo Smartpen records simultaneous audio and handwriting that can be uploaded to LiveScribe’s site as a Pencast to share with students, or you can share your recordings with students through Angel, Blackboard, Moodle, email, Facebook, or Google Docs.

The LiveScribe uses proprietary paper that is, in itself, quite amazing. There are printed “controls” you tap the pen to that instructs pen what you want to do, and if you look closely to the paper you can see that the entire piece of paper is covered in tiny dots. These dots form a grid so that the pen always knows where it is on the page. The paper itself is not very expensive, about 20 dollars for a 4-pack of spiral notebooks, or you can print out your own using software provided by LiveScribe.

The LiveScribe Echo comes in a 2, 4 and 8 gig model. The 2 gig model is probably enough for a semester’s recordings or 200 hours of audio and digital note recordings, or 32,000 pages. But you can always download your recordings daily before you fill up the pens memory.