THIS ARTICLE CAME FROM LIFEHACKER.COM

Preparing for college is not only daunting but expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve got some tips and tricks to help make the whole process easier.

Sure, most students aren’t heading off to college until later this summer, but if you’re fresh to the university halls or you’re looking for a fresh start at school, now’s the time to get started. Here’s a look at some of the most important hardware, software, and textbook tools you’ll want in your arsenal when you matriculate.

Hardware

Choosing a Computer
Forget the Mac or PC debate—you can make that choice on your own. The important thing is figuring out what type of machine you’re going to need. It’s unlikely that you’ll want to head off to college with a desktop machine—unless you’re studying video editing, music production, or something like that—so we’ll concentrate on laptops.

First things first: You’re going to need to figure out your optimal screen size and resolution. Most students can get by with a 13″ screen and should, because it generally provides a decent resolution (at least 1280×720) and it’s not too much trouble to carry around. If you’re looking to drop some weight, you can consider options like the MacBook Air or DELL Adamo, but you’ll be paying considerably more for considerably less in those cases. If you have cash to burn and just plan to use your machine for typing papers and taking notes in class, a pricey compact notebook might be right up your alley.

Say you’re going into graphic design; you’re probably going to need additional screen real estate. A 13″ screen probably won’t cut it in your case, and you should consider something larger. On the other hand, most laptop displays aren’t ideal, and if you’re looking for a large screen and a better panel (for color accuracy, viewing angle, etc.), you may be better off purchasing an external monitor instead of paying more for a larger laptop screen for the best of both worlds.

Your situation is going to dictate the type of machine you need, and there are too many variations to cover here. Instead, here are some important things to consider when choosing a machine for college:

• Does your schoolwork require a fast machine? Ideally you’d like your computer to last you the four years you’re at college, but if you don’t need the fastest machine on the market don’t get it. There are plenty of other things you can buy with the leftover money (or you can just save it).
• Are you doing any graphic design, video editing, or other type of media work? Figure out if the software you’ll need for your classes makes use of your GPU. If it does, make a good graphics card a consideration when choosing a machine.
• The size and weight of a laptop becomes especially important when you’re carrying it around all day.
• Battery life can be a huge issue if you’re spending long hours in class. If your class schedule is scattered, you may have time to charge in between. Maybe you’ll even be blessed with outlets in the classroom so you don’t have to worry about running out of juice. More than likely, though, you’ll need your battery to last you at least four hours. Try to choose a laptop that’s rated for quite a bit longer to ensure you’ll get the battery life you need. But if that level of battery life just can’t be possible you can always look at purchasing additional batteries or external power sources. Before you do that, however, try to get the most out of the battery you already have. We’ve looked at several ways to extend your laptop’s battery life: maximizing your Window’s laptop battery, 15 ways to increase battery life, extend your battery life with the right browser, and five tips for increasing your laptop’s battery life.

Getting a traditional laptop isn’t your only option. Being champions of portability and battery life, netbooks and iPads are other possibilities for certain kinds of students. While I enjoy both, I personally don’t see either being the best choice for students—at least exclusively. Even 11.6″ netbooks are still a bit cramped with screens packing in enough resolution to make the average person’s eyes tired. The iPad is also geared more towards consumption than productivity, so it isn’t necessarily an ideal choice for a student. But if you’re fortunate enough to be able to afford a supplementary device used primarily for note-taking and reading, reserving your main laptop for the real work, you might not want to rule out either device.

Getting a Discount
Welcome to the wonderful world of student discounts. It makes buying a new machine a little easier since you’ll be—potentially—saving $100 or more. While these savings aren’t as phenomenal as the software discounts you’ll receive, they’re generally pretty helpful.

If you’re looking at buying a Mac, you’ll need to use Apple’s School Finder to get your discount. Another lesser-known option for gaining a massive Apple hardware discount (mainly on higher-end hardware) is to sign up for a student developer membership via the Apple Developer Center. While it’ll cost you $99, you’ll be allowed one discounted hardware purchase. In some cases the discount will more than pay for the cost of the membership, but be sure to check before you purchase. A link to the ADC Hardware Purchase Program Store is available on this page (you need to click through from the page, which is why there’s no direct link here). You only get to use this discount once in your entire lifetime, so choose wisely.

If you’re looking at buying a Windows PC, the discounts will vary. Most major manufacturers—such as HP, DELL, and Sony—offer student discounts on their hardware, but not every discount is equal. You’ll want to compare machines from each brand you’re considering and check the discounts offered. Don’t forget to factor in the cost of shipping as well. Often ordering direct can land you higher shipping costs than you’d accrue with an online retailer.

Tax is another issue. While student discounts are great, often times your tax rate will negate them entirely. In some cases, like in the great state of California, sales tax is so high that your student discount won’t actually help you save money. When tax bloats the cost of the machine, it’s worth looking at online retailers. Generally an online retailer will offer a lower price than the manufacturer, and because you can avoid tax and shipping in most cases (especially if you sign up for Amazon Student), you may end up saving money by forgoing your student discount altogether. Before you assume your student discount is the best route to saving you some cash, calculate your discounted total with tax and compare it to the deals available through your preferred online retailers.

Secure Your Purchase
Depending on your living situation, the need for security can take a few forms. In dorms—especially with roommates who may be bringing people in you don’t know—you’re going to need to make sure your laptop is safe. While tethering your laptop to your desk is something you probably won’t do, you need to make sure you keep it somewhere safe. Work out a plan with your roommate to look after your stuff when you’re out and s/he’s home. Ask a friend to watch your laptop if you need to take a bathroom break while studying in the library. If you have friends you can trust, they’ll prove to be better security than an inanimate object.

If the worst does happen and your laptop is stolen, you’re going to want to make sure all of your data is backed up. We’ve created a fool-proof automatic backup plan using Mozy, but if you’d like to figure out your own plan you should consider the following:

• Ideally you want to follow Peter Krogh’s 3-2-1 backup rule, which states you need 3 copies of any important file, 2 different media types, and 1 copy stored off site. That means you’ll need an external hard drive (discussed later) for backing up locally and an online service of your choice (such as Mozy, Backblaze, or Carbonite).
• Figure out what you need to back up and what you don’t. If your computer were to be stolen or your hard drive were to crash, you’d probably be able to reinstall much of what’s on your machine already. What really matters is backing up irreplaceable, unique files like your schoolwork. For that purpose, something like Dropbox (a Lifehacker favorite) may do the trick-especially when you get 2GB of storage for free (which grows as you invite your friends).
• Backup isn’t just about having the latest copy of a file, but several older copies as well. If keeping multiple versions is important to you, you’ll want to take this into account when designing your backup plan. For a fee, Dropbox will keep multiple versions of your files. For Mac Users, OS X’s built-in Time Machine will manage several versions as well. If you want to get a little geeky, you can set up a shared web hosting account (here are some recommendations) and use Subversion to keep track of multiple versions of your work.

Software

The software you’ll need when heading off to college is going to vary based on your major, but there are a few staples every college student should explore.

Note-taking
Regardless of your major, you’re going to—at some point—find yourself in a position where you’re taking notes. While it would be easy to say use Evernote and be done with it, that doesn’t necessarily cover all your bases. Microsoft OneNote is a popular choice on Windows, as is Circus Ponies Notebook on OS X. If you’re simply looking to capture (mostly) plain text, Simplenote may be what you’re looking for.

The Office Suite
On Windows, the standard is Microsoft Office, of course. On the Mac you can get Office too, but Apple’s iWork is a worthy alternative (in some cases). If you’re running Linux or are just looking for a cross-platform and <em<free Office alternative, OpenOffice is for you. Last, if you’re willing to go web-only, Google Docs or Zoho are both great options.

Managing Your Money
Whether you’re getting a free ride or are inundated with loans, money management is going to be a necessity. As we saw in our recent Hive Five, there are a lot of great options for managing your cashflow (like Mint). Since much of your spending will likely happen while away from your computer, you might want to consider a smartphone application for keeping track of everything you spent. While some sites (like Mint) provide mobile apps, you can take a more active approach by using a mobile app that requires that you actually enter your transactions. It’s easy to get lazy with a debit card and online banking, but it’s not always up-to-the-minute and you can end up with overdraft fees pretty easily if you’re not careful. Mobile apps like Money (iPhone, free) and Money Manager (Android, $1.99) are the more tech-savvy alternatives to balancing your checkbook.

Free Stuff and Discounts
There’s a lot of free software out there and you should take advantage of it. For example, the starving students software pack provides you with a bunch of open source software you can use instead of the many for-pay alternatives. If you do (or have to) purchase your software you can get enormous academic discounts. While sites like Academic Superstore (my preference) and JourneyEd offer you a wide variety of software (and even some hardware) discounts, often times you can get better discounts by going directly to the manufacturer. Be sure to check before purchasing to make sure you get the best deal. You’ll also likely find something useful in our completely free Lifehacker Packs for Windows or Mac.

Textbooks

Photo by richardmasoner.

Used Books and Resale
New textbooks can be ridiculously expensive, so of course you want to by used when you can. Amazon offers a great textbook search and a buyback program. TextSwap is a free exchange service that’ll help you find a local and nationwide options. Chances are your school offers a program as well. Often times the school textbook buyback programs aren’t the best deal you can get, but they are convenient. Ambitious students on campus may have initiated a textbook trade program as well. If you give your admissions office a call, they can help you find out what your options are directly on campus.

Digital Textbooks
iPads and ebook readers have recently become an option for textbooks, but textbook availability can vary widely depending on your needs. Some quick searches will determine if this is an option for you, but this can be an expensive option. You definitely gain the convenience of carrying around a device that weighs less than a single textbook, but you lose the ability to buy used and resell. If you want to go the ebook route, consider where you can get your books from. Using an ebook reader like the Kindle or Nook ties you to a single bookstore (unless you can manage to find DRM-free PDFs or other supported file types for your textbooks). Devices like the iPad—which are much more expensive—give you multiple book sources and may improve your chances of finding what you’re looking for.

The conference was AMAZING!  We had just under 200 people. (Read below to learn why that is impressive.)  We have already discussed changes for next year’s conference.  We hope you will consider joining us.  Check RMWP.ORG for updates.

This conference schedule is a thing of great beauty.  You can now also download the conference program.

When I first started planning for this conference, I was told to expect around 30 people to show up.  As of today we have about 152 registered.  I am amazed at the support.  I have never done this before.  It has been eye-opening.If you are interested in hearing Kylene Beers and Bob Probst along with 12 other presenters speak, I would encourage you to come on down, over, or up to Birmingham, Alabama on Saturday (27 February 2010).Here is a link to the page where you can register: 21st Century Literacies Conference(I will remove the option to register at 11:59 p.m. the night before the conference.)

I purchased a copy of Janet Allen’s Inside Words this summer at a workshop. Among the AMAZING activities in the book I discovered the Frayer Method. (Click HERE to see a demonstration of the Frayer method with vocabulary).

When I saw it, I immediately thought of how useful it would be to use this to teach voice/style within your students’ writing. If you had them fill out a graphic organizer like the one used with vocabulary above, you could really get them thinking about their own writing.

Then I started thinking about how useful it would be in teaching the differences between the literary periods I teach (everything from romanticism to modernism). Because the influence of these period is often subtle and lacking a strict definition, this will certainly be useful for me next year.

Anyway…this post was more for me than my readers. Just thought I’d share, though.

Here are some PDF worksheets that feature the Frayer methods:

What is the Frayer method?

Frayer Vocabluary PDF

Almost a year ago I highlighted the very cool Grammar Ninja, a web based game where you play a cartoonish ninja that throws his stars at various parts of speech in sentences displayed on your screen.

I’ve tried the program with my students and they love it. There are however, two problems with it:

1. Some filters will block it since it’s a game.
2. It’s not customizable. You can’t put your own sentences into it.

This has been solved with the desktop version. It’s freely downloadable and allows you to create your own sentences so you can adjust the program to whatever level of grammar you’re working with.

If you didn’t like Grammar Ninja before, you’ll love it now.

When I was in college I strolled into the bookstore and picked up a notebook for my class and headed to the classroom. Once the professor entered I flipped it open to find that the first page was defective. The margin line ( which is usually just an inch or so from the left side of the page) was about 4 inches from the left (as seen in the picture to the right). I flipped through the notebook to find that the whole thing was defective. Now planning to return it, I closed the it. In doing so I discovered that I hadn’t bought a college ruled notebook; rather, I had purchased a law ruled notebook.

Over the semester, I found that it was the greatest notebook ever! I found it to be very useful for organizing notes. (To experience law ruled paper, just print it from pritablepaper.net (which is explained in this post).

FOR LITERATURE: To the left of the red line I would write character names, page numbers, or dates. To the right of the red line I would write details from the text, professor commentary, or personal commentary.

FOR PAPERS: I would write my drafts of paragraphs or of outlines to the right of the red line. To the left I would write notes to myself for changes. (I know you can do that on typical lined paper, but with this paper you have more room to make more significant/substantial changes.)

FOR MATH: Because I am a why guy (I need to know why things work the way they work), I needed to take notes on problems demonstrated in class to the right of the red line and explain to myself why I did certain operations to the left of the red line. This helped me when I was studying in the wee ours of the morning after the logic portion of my brain had gone to sleep.

OTHER USES:

• Vocabulary study guide (just fold it back and your have a study tool).
• Words and definitions
• A page to keep up with assignments you’ve had throughout the semester.
• Have your students take tests on it so you can comment on their performance.
• Since I am sure you can come up with a million more uses, I will stop the list here.

Please feel free to leave other suggestions in the comments below.

Part 2 of this blog can be found here.

Let me begin by saying that doing this is time consuming. It will require about 10 hours of your own time. However, you will quickly see that it save so much more time than that once implemented.

Over the past few weeks I have been working on getting all of my students (98 in all) blogging. There have been inquiries into student access to computers; and there have been hours devoted to figuring out how I would manage all of these blogs; but most importantly, there have been sleepless nights pondering the safety of my students. I started by having parents sign a form giving permission for their student to create a blog. Then I created a blog of my own. Then I walked them through both making their own and adding my blog to their reading list. You can read more about these steps below.

First, I created my form:

Get your own - Open publication

This form (as you can see when you click on it) explains how to set a blog up in the first place. I did that so that my students who know their way around the keyboard would go ahead and create theirs. Then, they become my helpers in the classroom. And, as you have probably found, it doesn’t really matter how computer savvy the teacher is. Once you show them something, they take it and make it ten times better.

I gave them a week to bring the signed permission slips back to me. Then we spent the week with the computers. However, each day I had a literature-relevant prompt to get them writing.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOUR SUBMERGE YOUR STUDENTS IN THE BLOGGING PROCESS AT THE BEGINNING.
Here is why:
1.) They are more likely to remember their passwords later if they are submerged in it.
2.) They become attached to it because they get time to personalize it.
3.) They immediately begin getting feedback from their peers.
4.) Then they immediately realized that they are writing for an audience that expects quality writing.
5.) All the kinks will get worked out in the submersion period (I will list a few I discovered below).

IT IS IMPORTANT TO LET THEM HAVE THEIR OWN VOICE
Give them content relevant prompts, but also allow them to express themselves about other topics. (You can see a list of prompts for younger students and another set for older students in the links embedded in this sentence.)

IT IS IMPORTANT THAT THEY EMAIL YOU THEIR USERNAME AND BLOG URL
Be sure to do this. When you have all of their emails, it save a lot of time. I went through and “followed” my students’ blogs once they followed mine. However, because they couldn’t use their real names, I didn’t always know who each blog belonged to until they each emailed me their URL and username. Then, I went to the dashboard of my google reader (which comes with the blogs made at blogger.com) and searched for each students’ blog address. Once I found it, I quickly changed their username as it appeared in my google reader to their real name. That helps when you are trying to give a grade for blog posts.

IT IS IMPORTANT THEY ARE ENCOURAGED (FORCED) TO INTERACT
Forcing them to comment on other students’ blogs will open the dialogue they need to 1.) feel like they are writers, 2.) know that they have an audience, and 3.) open dialogue that forces them to use academic language in “regular” conversation. They would not use this type of language with friends on facebook, but they would use it in the typical college classroom or English class.

ESTABLISH RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
Make sure you have a discussion about appropriate conversations via the internet. I know I have had a number of near altercations from students who were quick to whip out unacceptable commentary in emails to me. Expect that they will do that to their peers as well because it will happen if you don’t talk about it from the start.

MAKE THEM ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR POSTS
*BE SURE to have them mark the setting for comments that force the owner of the blog to screen the comments. Then it is the owner’s fault if something inappropriate gets posted. That will make each blogger your front line of defense.
*If you don’t have an iphone or blackberry, and you don’t want to grade while walking the halls, then you can have your students print out their posts (with their comments) to turn in to you.
*Tell them that they must post by a certain date and time for it to count. Most students will be able to post from their cell phones, so they can do it on the bus or math class (no offense, math teachers).

To create an account via blogger (or blogspot), students need their own email address. If they already have an gmail account, they are good to go. If they have their own email address (that is not a gmail account) they CAN just use that.If they need an email account, but you worry about them having their own, check out this post written a while back by Kevin (the post is also referenced in the comments below). However, you may find that guerillamail.com may not work with some blogging sites.

Ramsey Brothers Productions has some serious short films and most of them have a lesson to teach. However, I’m really not sure if this video is more appropriate for a film studies class or for an English class. Whichever way you want to look at it, students having an appreciation for older movie styles will find this clip far more enjoyable. As you watch it, pay close attention to the dialogue and improve your grammar as you go.

In an effort to raise the bar on my tests, I have sought to make my questions more like those found on AP tests.  I want my students to learn in preparation for the tests, but I also want them to learn FROM the tests.  However, the problem I am experiencing is a lack of knowledge of academic vocabulary.

ACADEMIC VOCABULARY
By academic vocabulary I do not mean words you would likely encounter at each grade level (which is mostly what I get when I google “academic vocabulary”). Rather, I mean the vocabulary test-makers use to craft the questions. Those verbs are what often trip students on such assessments. Since they were difficult to find, I decided to add some of the good stuff I found here on this page.

This list comes from the English Companion (by Jim Burke). It is a list of 350+/- words that one might encounter on an assessment. (Even teachers looking for new words to use in objectives on their lesson plans should check these out.) I don’t think it would be a problem to start off 1st graders on many of these words. What a great list! Thanks Jim Burke!

Test Practice sites (worth your time and for all content areas):
The College Board, which created the AP curriculum, I think, provides some well written free response questions that could easily be adapted for the lower level grades.

Here is a GREAT site for teaching students how to preform at the AP and Pre-AP levels. It has a lot of great links. I will definitely be putting this on my bookmark toolbar!

Of course, I cannot leave out WebEnglishTeacher.com out of the mix. At this link you will find ALL things English. This particular link just deals with AP, but just check out their home page for more great materials on just about anything.

For those looking for practice tests on a variety of subjects, you should check out THIS site. By looking at it, it was created a long time ago, but if you click enough times, you will find some really useful test practice materials. Again, I will say that half of the 100 or so sites do not work, but those that do seem pretty good.
This is for the writing assessment used in Florida called the FCAT (Otownteacher, this might interest you). Click on the drop down menu at the BOTTOM of the page to get a curriculum teaching elementary students how to break down the prompts. The test practice is broken down into weeks. After looking at them, I have found that they would be applicable to all states.

During my Master’s program, I was introduced to an up-and-coming teaching approach called UDL (Universal Design for Learning). This concept began in architecture, while designing infrastructure for people with disabilities. During this process, they discovered that those with disabilities were not the only people assisted by the designs. For example, when cut curbs were created, they were meant to aid people who are in wheelchairs cross the street. It was soon revealed that the smoother walkways also assisted those pushing strollers or delivery carts. So, while it helps support those with special needs, it was indeed universally successful. Fast forward to today- this same concept is being applied to education, with a technological twist. A Great Schools article by Nancy Firchow sums up the idea of UDL this way:

 ”UDL uses computer technology to create an educational environment that allows all students, including those with learning disabilities, to succeed in general education classrooms with minimal use of assistive technology (AT).”

It is guided by three principles,

• Multiple methods of presentation
• Multiple options for participation
• Multiple means of expression

While this is an extensive, pedogogy reforming approach to education, it is also a fantastic way to support every student in your classroom. It appears especially applicable to the ever-daunting Research Paper. With the guidance in UDL, students of all skill levels, reading proficiencies, mental/physical disabilities, and cultural backgrounds could access and manipulate the information required to perform grade level tasks. The catch here: teachers need to modify end goals to allow for the three principles. While a written product is the desired end result, those with difficulty in writing would have a built in support system. I have only scratched the surface of UDL, so please feel free to explore the following websites for an abundance of additional information.

http://www.cast.org/research/udl/index.html

http://www.washington.edu/doit/Faculty/Strategies/Universal/

http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/2490

I just stumbled across a New York Times article that examined the speeches that Democrats and Republican delivered at their respective conventions and then analyzed them to see what words occurred most frequently. This should, in theory, point out what is most important to these parties (at least in their rhetoric if not in fact).

Here in Canada, National Post did the same thing using Wordle and compared Barack Obama’s acceptance speech with Martin Luther King’s “I had a dream” speech. This kind of activity is instructive in its own right for history and Social Studies or Civics classes, but is also useful in an English course.

Just imagine if you had the most recent speech of your mayor or (if you dare) your principal. Run it through a program like Wordle. What are these people advocating? What’s important to them?

If you’re working on making speeches in class, have the students run their own speeches through Wordle. Are the ideas they’re emphasizing really the ones they want to bring across? It could be a great moment in self reflection.

If you have to teach kids how to pick out the main ideas of paragraphs or note taking skills, you may want to check out awesomehighlighter.com. 

DIRECTIONS:  All you have to do is 1.)go to the site

2.) type in the website address you want to mark up

3.) and click “highlight page.”

4.) hightlight and add notes as you wish.

5.) click DONE to get a url for your work and a list of everything you highlighted.

USES:

Use it to give instructions on how to use a website
Have students to a grammar technique scavenger hunt on their favorite sites
Teaching main ideas
Teaching researching methods
Teaching note-taking skills
You could put a paper on your website for students to highlight the errors
(if you have more ideas, leave them as comments)

AWESOME EXTRAS:
The great thing about this is you can pick different colors & you can even put a virtual sticky note on there. Then, students can just print out the marked up page when turning in the assignment.

***When you click done, it gives you the website address for a page that shows what you highlighted.  AND, it will even give you a list of all the thing s you highlighted.  In other words, it takes the notes for you!!!!!  (While that takes away from lessons about note taking skills, your reluctant students will enjoy the technology and ease.)

BEFORE YOU READ THIS:

If you do not know what a digital pen is, you can simply scroll down to the bullet points below (or click HERE to read about the Logitech Digital Pen). It writes just like a real pen, but it stores what you wrote so you can plug the pen into your computer  and upload it to a document.

MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL

I have recently considered investing in a new piece of technology that would help with digital portfolios.  If you wanted to keep a catalog of a students’ mistakes, but did not want to double your workload, you could purchase one of these pens.  Once you finish writing in the margins you could save that data to add it to your digital portfolio (a word document for that student).

 ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

As you grade assessments that require a progression of improvement (i.e. spelling tests, etc.), you can make corrections in the margins that will later be uploaded to your computer from the pen.

IEP/SPECIAL ED. SUGGESTIONS:

You could also have students who have IEPs get notes from other students.  I guess this would be an expensive version of the carbon copy paper.

TIP (though I haven’t used one yet): I guess you would have to keep a pad  next to your stack of papers to write to jot down the name of each student as you begin grading their papers.  The reason is because when you upload the list of notations made by your digital pen, you wouldn’t know where one students paper began and another ended.  By reaching over and jotting down the name of the student each time (and drawing a line across the page, perhaps, you would be telling the pen to do the same on the document when you upload the data.

MORE INFO

For more information about this pen (there are many different versions out there), read the information below:

• What is it? You write with the pen in the notebook.  The pen has ink.  The notebook is real paper.  What’s new?  The pen uses an optical sensor to store everything you write.  Even once the pen is separated from the paper, it stores the pages you have written.  When you are ready to upload, you place the pen in it’s USB-linked cradle and it uploads in one click of the mouse.  Now everything that was written down is on your computer.
• Cost?  Retail is $149.95 for a pen and notebook.  Of course, you can find it for a little cheaper if you look around on the Internet.  You can get several sizes of notebooks.  I was able to purchase six standard-paper sized notebooks for under $25 after some digging.
• Technical Requirements?  Pen, cradle, notebook, io software.  This all comes packaged together.  To my knowledge, this product does not work on Macs.  The pen “package” does come with many ink cartridge refills.  I used the pen for four months in six hours per week of class before it needed a refill.
• How could we use this technology in the hybrid or traditional classroom?  Every day that we meet for my hybrid (part Internet, part classroom) Intermediate Algebra class, a different student takes notes using the digital pen and notebook.  They take the notes with them, I take the pen with me and upload that day’s notes to the web site.  Very quickly, we established the rule that those students that have been absent are the ones that should step forward to be note-takers, since they get the greatest benefit.
• How could we use this technology in the online classroom?  If the technology gets cheaper, or the student could get many semesters of use out of the pen, we could use this technology to have students “show their work” for problems requiring sophisticated use of notation or graphs.
• How could we use this technology in our professional lives?  The obvious use of this setup is for those folks who are not trained to create graphs or equations using a computer, but need to be able to communicate such figures using a computer.  You can attach the jpg file to an email and send your response to a question quite quickly.
• Wish list for this technology?   I would like an easier way to convert from the proprietary .pen files to pdf files.  Right now the conversion is .pen to .jpg (using the pen software) to .pdf using Adobe Acrobat Standard.  A cheaper setup cost would also be great to get mass use for students in online math classes.  Also pen software that works with Macs would be a plus.

(The bottom half of this article was taken from THIS site.  To read more click HERE, which is where the picture above was found.)