Pen from the future

When I picture the year 2050 I see flying cars, houses that self clean, and robots that make dinner. However, there seems to be a little piece of the future that has landed right here in 2009...the smart pen. This pen has been on the market for two years, and combines many forms of technology into one innovative tool that can assist with note-taking. The experience of seeing this incredible tool at work cannot compare to a written description of it, but nonetheless I will try my best to do it justice. When using this pen students have to write on specially made notebooks that appear to be any old spiral notebook. However, at the bottom of the page there is a sort of tool bar that has a record, stop, play, jump, bookmark and other buttons. When a student sits down in class to take notes he or she would press the record button on the bottom of the page of notes and simply start writing in ink with the pen on the notebook page. When the student has completed taking notes for the lecture that smartpen enables he or she to return to any point in the text that they wrote, touch the text with the pen, and the voice recording aspect of the pen will sync to the point in the professor's lecture when the student wrote that word. The notes and lecture can also be uploaded to the computer. More information can be found about the smartpen at livescribe.com. This futuristic tool is very difficult to conceive without seeing it in action so the Study and Learning Skills specialist at McBurney are now doing demonstrations of the smartpen. If you think this would be something that would help with your note-taking capabilities feel free to make an appointment with a Study and Learning Skills Specialist by calling the McBurney Center at 608-263-2741 or stopping by the office at 1305 Linden Drive.

-- Abby