We frequently hear about groups of educators using the smartpen in truly creative and inspiring ways. In 2011 we were tipped off to what’s going on in Janice Crowley’s school in Wichita, Kansas. Wichita Collegiate School is a private institution serving approximately 1,000 students grades 6 – 12.

In 2009 one of A.P. Chemistry Teacher Janice Crowley’s students asked her if he could use something called a smartpen during her class. Janice checked out the smartpen and was immediately inspired by the possibilities the tool had for her class. She started creating course content with the smartpen and sharing the interactive pencasts online for her students to access after hours. She would recap difficult subjects in five minute summaries to help students struggling with a concept. The students began to rely on the pencasts especially when catching up after missing class or studying for a big test. Janice helped her school adopt smartpens into a variety of departments including literature and foreign languages.

Janice and the rest of the team at Wichita Collegiate School opened their doors to our video team so that we could capture their story and share it with other educators. We created a Wichita Collegiate School video case study accessible here: http://www.livescribek12.com/wichitacollegiate/. The video case study includes eight documentary style videos produced to inspire and educate others about what’s happened at Wichita Collegiate.

Collier County Public Schools leverages UDL, or Universal Design for Learning, to ensure that all of their students have the opportunity to access content.  This model for learning utilizes technology to create a variety of types of content to meet the unique needs of every student. One tool that the district has incorporated into their curriculum is the smartpen. Used heavily in math and science classes throughout the district, teachers record pencasts reviewing lessons and concepts to play infront of their students during class. Using this model, the teacher is free to facilitate the class by working one on one with students or in small groups.

In 2011 Collier County Public Schools invited our video team to visit Corkscrew Middle School to check out the technology in action. We created a video case study accessible here: http://www.livescribe.com/blog/collier/. This video case study includes eight videos and a white paper PDF narrating this district’s commitment to UDL, their smartpen program, and the impact this practice has on learning.

In 2011 Fairfax County Public Schools launched a new initiative called the Innovation Institute. This program invited teachers to team up in pairs comprised of one special education teacher and one general education teacher to apply for smartpens for their classrooms. Each application proposed a unique use of the smartpen that the teacher teams would implement into their classroom over the upcoming year. The diverse programs support students in a variety of ways including helping reluctant readers develop literacy skills, providing additional instruction for language learners, and encouraging independent learning.

Our video team visited the school after all of the pairs had been using the smartpens with their classes for a full semester to capture their story and create a video case study, accessible here: http://www.livescribe.com/blog/fairfax/

The video case study features eight video highlighting the Innovation Institute, how it works, and the impact the teacher created smartpen programs has on learning inside this unique district.

Pencasting can be used by students to produce a multimedia representation demonstrating what they learned. Math teacher Julie McLeod took a practice test from the Texas TAKS standardized test and assigned each problem to a student to solve in a pencast.  Julie posted the pencasts to her Livescribe Online account and then used the embed feature to make the pencast appear on her web page accessible as a study resource for all students.   You can check out the student’s pencasts here: http://juliemcleod.org/mathcasts/

This type of student comprehension work is also applicable for research projects, book reports, art, graphic organizers, oral presentations and story telling. In the pencast below one of Julie’s students interviews another about how to solve a math problem.

Annotating your notes is a great way to clarify key points or add in additional content after class.  A great pencasting strategy for creating annotated notes is to only write out key points during instruction with a significant amount of space between each note (see the green text in the image below).

After class, review your notes and fill in additional information. If you pause your pencast to fill in the additional notes, your writing will not be linked to audio and your ink will be black.  If you write in your extra content while replaying the notes, these notes will be linked to audio and will be blue.  The image below reflects annotated notes.

Livescribe Desktop color codes these notes for you using the following key:

• Active Ink: Captured handwritten notes with audio is GREEN
• Inactive Ink: Captured handwritten notes without audio is BLACK
• Annotated Notes: Handwritten notes added during playback is BLUE

One effective note-taking method is The Cornell System, which was designed by Walter Pauk from Cornell University. This concept breaks dot paper into three sections: the cue column, the notetaking area and the summary area. The image below outlines where each zone is located on the dot paper.  The only zone used during class time is the note-taking area intended for taking notes during instruction.

After class students review their notes and identify key questions that the notes answer. Students write these questions in the cue column. After listening to the entire lesson students fill in the summary section by writing a short review of the key concepts in their own words. Students who use this method take in the entire lesson twice and create an indexed resource for test prep and lesson review down the road.

Mapping is a way to condense material visually to show relationships between concepts. A map is a diagram of the major points and significant sub-points that support a topic. In the example below, we highlight different uses for pencasts.

The purpose of mapping as an organizational strategy is to improve memory by encoding information in a highly visual way. By mapping with pencasts, you also preserve the out-loud narrative of your thoughts with the map for later access.

Mapping is an ideal notetaking strategy when working with students or colleagues to create concept webs, thinking maps, brainstorming notes, graphic organizers, T charts, fishbone diagrams, KWL charts, mind maps and Venn diagrams.

Use the video above or step by step directions below to learn how to add a watermark image to a Pencast PDF so that your worksheets, study guides, or other content is visible in your pencasts.

Download a PDF of the following directions or keep reading this post to learn how.

Directions:

1. Remove a piece of dot paper from a Livescribe single subject notebook.
2. Place it in your printer tray.
3. Open a PDF of the page you want to use in your final pencast in Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat Pro.
4. Print it on the dot paper.
5. Complete the page using your Livescribe smartpen, recording where appropriate.
6. Connect your smartpen to your computer and upload the audio session and notes.
7. When the page appears in Livescribe Desktop you will notice that the image printed from the PDF does not yet appear.
8. Use the Computer Connector to create a pencast PDF of the page you just uploaded.
9. Open the Pencast PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro.
10. Open the Tools Menu on the right-hand side of the screen. (Note: If you do not see a Tools Menu because you have an earlier version of Adobe Acrobat Pro, go to the Document Menu > Watermark > Add…)
11. Under Pages > Edit Page Design > click on Watermark to open the submenu.
12. Click on Add Watermark.
13. Select File and click on the Browse button to locate the PDF that you printed on dot paper.
14. Make sure “Scale to relative target page” is unchecked and click on OK.
15. Go to File > Save to save the changes to the Pencast PDF.
16. Your updated Pencast PDF file will now have the image and annotations made with your smartpen.

Join us for the following webinars to learn how to use the Livescribe smartpen and software. Be sure to check out our latest development – the Training Marathon! It’s a full day programmed with interactive and engaging training webinars on five different topics. Once a month we will host the training marathon for participants who would like to join for any or all of the webinars on the smartpen, desktop software, pencasting, and note taking techniques.

You can register for any or all of the online offerings. As always, our online trainings are free and open to anyone. Use the links below to learn more and register.

Training Marathon Day: Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Register for one or all of the following sessions:

• Smarten Introduction 11:00am – 12:00pm EDT
• Livescribe Desktop Introduction 12:30 – 1:30pm EDT
• Basic Pencasting 1:45 – 2:45pm EDT
• Advanced Pencasting 3:00 – 4:00pm EDT
• Note Taking Strategies 4:15 – 5:00pm EDT

The following training webinars are also open for registration this Spring:

1 – Smartpen Introduction: Learn how to use the Livescribe smartpen and dot paper to capture handwritten notes and record audio. Use the play back controls to play back audio during the paper replay session. (Prerequisite: None)

• Tuesday, May 22, 2012 11:00am – 12:00pm EDT

2 – Livescribe Desktop Introduction: Learn how to upload your notes and audio to the Livescribe Desktop software. Search for keywords, organize pages in custom notebooks, manage your audio files, and customize the settings. (Prerequisite: Smartpen Introduction)

• Tuesday, May 22, 2012 12:30 – 1:30pm EDT
  

3 – Basic Pencasting: Configure and use Livescribe Connectors to send and share pencasts using the Livescribe Desktop software or customizable Livescribe Connect launch line shortcuts on dot paper. (Prerequisite: Livescribe Desktop Introduction)

• Tuesday, May 22, 2012 1:45 – 2:45 EDT
  

4 – Advanced Pencasting: Learn 10 tips and techniques for making your pencasts flow better and be more engaging for your viewers. (Prerequisite: Basic Pencasting)

• Tuesday, May 22, 2012 3:00 – 4:00 EDT
• Wednesday, June 13, 2012 3:00 – 4:00pm EDT
  

5 – Note Taking Strategies: Explore new ways to enhance your note taking skills with the addition of audio synced to your handwritten notes. Organize notes in Livescribe Desktop and share them with study groups. (Prerequisite: Smartpen Introduction)

• Tuesday, May 22, 2012 4:15 – 5:00pm EDT

COLLIER COUNTY, FL - A smartpen is making a big difference in Collier County classrooms. It’s quickly taking the place of chalkboards and notebooks.

“A lot of times students have trouble taking notes, writing things down and listening, doing two things at once,” said Tom Keer, Math Specialist at Corkscrew Middle School.

The Livescribe pen can do everything at once, so students don’t have to stress.

“Sometimes she would talk a little too fast and I would be still writing something while she would be explaining something else,” said student Janine Cortesi of Corkscrew Middle School.

Now kids in don’t have to get caught-up with catching-up- because the pens are at every school across the county.

The pen records everything a teacher says and writes, and kids can access the information from any computer in the world.

“It gives students a personal tutor at home, they can re-watch lessons, relearn things,” said Keer.

“Sometimes I don’t get everything down right when it’s said so I always rewind and play over,” said student Autumn Rybak of Corkscrew Middle School.

Students can work at their own pace and teachers can keep a closer eye on them.

Some pre-record lessons and play them in class, which frees the teacher up to walk around and monitor progress and problems.

“Makes it where you can kind of clone yourself,” said Keer.

That helps give students more individualized instructions based on each student’s needs.

“It helps me get better grades,” said Rybak.

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