Some cool news, Pulse fans. UVa Today (published by the University of Virginia) reported faculty and students in the university’s Engineering School are studying how the Pulse smartpen can be used for distance learning, electronic grading and interactive class materials.

We’ve been working closely with UVa over the last few months to help scope out the projects and train faculty. The data the university is collecting is incredibly important for Pulse’s future development and we’re thrilled by some of the initial feedback we’ve received. Check out these quotes from the article:

• “Right out of the box, the smartpen has some very exciting applications that could be of use to our students and faculty.” – Stephanie Moore, director of engineering instructional design for the Engineering School

• “For math-heavy classes, typing notes on a computer doesn’t work very well. Equations take a long time to type into a computer, and graphs or diagrams are even more cumbersome. So, with a computer tablet, those sorts of tasks are easier to do. With one of these pens used as an input device, it could take the place of a tablet and be substantially less expensive.” – Sheila Warren, doctoral student

Several of UVa’s studies will wrap-up at the end of this year, with others being conducted over a two or three year period. We have several other studies in the works – more on them in future posts, so stay tuned!