The Echo Smartpen from Livescribe

I have been using the Echo Smartpen for the past week and to say the least I am very impressed with the second generation pen from Livescribe. Livescribe evidently listened to customer feedback and made a more ergonomic offering with this release. With its new shape and design the pen feels much more comfortable in my hand. Adding the soft rubberized grip gives the pen a good feel when writing. With the new design the pen will not be able to roll of your desk as was the case with the Pulse pen. The Echo Smartpen is now available with 4 GB ($169) or 8 GB($199) of memory which would allow you to store and incredible amount of audio notes and apps which are available from the Livescribe Online Store. The 8GB Echo Smartpen is capable of storing over 800 hours of audio depending on the quality of the audio recorded. In any case the Echo Smartpen can store a huge amount of audio.

So what do you get when you purchase the Echo Smartpen? In the box you get the Echo Smartpen, a mini USB cable, one digital A5 Starter pad, two pen tip covers, and some Quick Start guides. To get started using the Echo you will first need to download the Livescribe Desktop software from the Livescribe website and register your pen. By registering your Echo Smartpen and setting up an account you will be given space on the Livescribe server to store your penscasts. More about pencasts later in this review. Once you have downloaded and installed the software you are ready to start using the Echo Smartpen. Now the fun begins, just touch the Record button on the bottom of the dot paper and everything you write is synchronized with what was said at the time. The quality of the recording is very good but on some occasions you do here some pen tip noise as you are writing on the paper. To listen to what you recorded you can use the Paper Reply feature by tapping the text with the pen tip on the dot paper to hear the recording. That part is almost magical!

The Echo Smartpen does not ship with the 3D noise cancellation ear buds as the previous model did, which I found to be very useful when recording in large lecture halls. Once you have written on the dot paper you can download the notes to your computer using the mini USB cable that plugs directly into the top of the pen. Changing to the mini USB cable I think is a move in the right direction and makes it easier for those that travel to carry it in their bag for fast syncing. The OLED display gives you visual feedback letting you know that the Echo Smartpen is transferring data to the Livescribe Desktop software. Once the process is done the Livescribe Desktop software provides you with a message that the transfer is complete. The process is straight forward and easy to do.

There have been lots of changes to the Livescribe Desktop software that bears mentioning. One of the new features which I believe will be used a great deal is the ability to create custom notebooks from selected pages you have downloaded. This works very similarly to how you can create Play Lists in iTunes. Simply create a Custom Notebook and drag pages into it. This gives you the ability to group pages of your notes as you see fit so that you can quickly access them. Having the ability to search through your notes to find specific information is one of the most powerful aspects of this system. Of course if you like you can listen to any of your pages played right from the desktop.

Sharing your files in different formats is one of the strengths of the Livescribe digital pen system. Educators will be able to export saved notes as a Pencast, PDF, orImage file. If you decide to save your notes as a Pencast anyone who has the Livescribe Desktop software will be able to view and listen to the recording. You can if you like also just download the audio portion of your pages which gives you another way to share information that was recorded. What I am really excited about is the announcement that I will be able to share my recordings as a PDF pencast that will be able to viewed using the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. I am told that this feature will be available sometime in the Fall. Likewise, Livescribe is working on an app for the iPad that will let me view my pencasts on the Apple iPad to be released later this summer. For those of you who missed my post about hand writing recognition and the Echo Smartpen click here to see how easy it is to convert your handwriting to editable text. It is really exciting to think about all of the possibilities for extending learning in the classroom with the Livescribe Echo Smartpen.

For those of you who may not be familiar with pencasts - this has got to be one of Livescribe's real strengths from and educational perspective. Over the past year educators have posted thousands of pencasts on all different subjects for others to access and view. With a Echo Smartpen a teacher can quickly record and model how to solve an algebraic problem for example that can be accessed from the web. Creating a pencast is as easy as writing and recording your voice and then uploading it to your Livescribe account. Once you upload your pencast to your account you can embed it on your website or link directly to it. You have full control of the file and who has access to it right from within the Livescribe Desktop software application. Just imagine the possibilities as a teacher being able to model a process and having your students watch you do a problem step by step. As more schools move to Learning Management Systems having a tool like the Echo Smartpen will become indispensable for creating digital content is straight forward and natural way. You can view a pencast that I did on how to solve for x below.

Solving for X
brought to you by Livescribe

The Livescribe ecosystem has really developed since the Pulse pen was released and with the release the Echo Smartpen, Livescribe continues to develop a very strong platform for pen computing that opens the doors for all kinds of possibilities. Look for another post on using apps with your Echo Smartpen and for ideas on how to use this technology in the classroom. For those of you that are using Livescribe smartpens I would invite your comments.

MindMeister Revisited

The more I use the web, the more I am moving my documents to the cloud and relying on these services to host my files. Being able to have access to my files from anywhere that I am connected to the web is invaluable to me. More importantly, having the ability to work collaboratively with my colleagues and partners is equally important and a key feature that is generally built into the hosted online software applications. I have used MindMeisiter for several years now and really enjoy its host of features that allow me the flexibility to do my mind mapping quickly in the cloud.

MindMeister works quickly in the cloud and is very easy and straightforward to use. It provides me with a way to add graphics, pictures and clip art into my maps to helps add to their visual appeal. MindMeister comes with a library of clip art but it is very easy to upload your own graphics to your map should you decide to go this route. Adding notes to an idea is easy to do with lots of formatting capabilities. Likewise, I can attach links, files and tasks to any branch in MindMeister. Being able to embed files makes MindMeister a great repository when I am working on projects and have related files that I want to database. Similarly, if I am working on a project with my partners it is easy to keep track of tasks and have MindMeister automatically email notifications when tasks are upcoming or overdue, from my mind maps. Notifications can be set up from within MindMeister to automatically email any collaborators that have tasks coming up or are overdue. It would be great if there was a way to export the Tasks and timelines into a project management software application. Or better yet MindMeister should consider having built in Gantt charting capability. You can always be hopeful!

Certainly the feature set that I really enjoy is being able to share my maps with others as I am working on projects and here is where MindMeister really shines. It is very easy to invite others to either "collaborate" or "view" my map which is done by sending an invite from within MindMeister. Since I am a blogger the one feature that really stands out for me is the ability to place a mind map on my blog. MindMesiter makes it very easy for me to publish my maps when I am done to my blog by providing me with the embed code. But more importantly I have a high degree of control as to what users who view my map can do. If I choose I can allow "copy and export," or give my viewers the opportunity to edit the map. In the same vein I can also password protect the map by adding a password into the equation. You can see an example of a mind map I created below by simply pasting in the embed code that was supplied by MindMeister. The mind map is fully interactive and you can expand and collapse branches and zoom in and out. Give it a try and let me know what you think. if you like there are also options for printing and exporting your maps in various formats. You can currently export your MindMesiter maps in the following formats: MindMeister, MindManager, FreeMind, PDF, JPG, and RTF.

DevLearn 09 Follow-up

After nearly a week out of the office attending the Adobe Summit and DevLearn 09 Conference I'm back in my office catching up. I met some really wonderful people and really enjoyed the conversations we had about the state of eLearning. It was very exciting to meet up with professionals in this area who I have only interacted with online for the past couple of years. To say the least, we are living through some really interesting and exciting times when it comes to learning and how to capitalize on the power of the web for eLearning.

I had over 50 participants at my session Delivering e-Learning Assets in PDF Format and focused on how one can deliver a range of content using the ubiquitous PDF format. During my session I showed how I am using Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended, Adobe Captivate 4, and Adobe Presenter to create rich and engaging eLearning assets. Using a combination of these tools it is possible to create some interesting materials that can be shared with the Adobe Acrobat Reader. One of the real take aways from the presentation is that it is now possible to embed video in your PDF's which your users can view with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader 9. During my demonstration I showed how you can embed SWF files into a Word document and create an interactive handout which can be saved as a PDF file. In fact this is the way I recently created my ebook Technology Supports for Writing. There a lots of ways to use PDF's to create handouts and eLearning materials using Adobe Acrobat Portfolios. You can take a look at this video that I created to give you some ideas of how you might use the Portfolio feature in the work that you do. To get a copy of my handouts from the conference you can download them from the DevLearn 09 Web site.

Captivate 4: Export Videos to PDF Format

Over the past year I have spent a great deal of time working with Adobe Captivate to create numerous video tutorials for the classes and the workshops that I hold. I have found Adobe Captivate easy to use and many features that have arrived in the latest version, Adobe Captivate 4 have really cut down on my production time. I have written about the use of text to speech in the production of my video tutorials which has worked well for me. But when all is said and done, one of the really important features when I am done with the video tutorial is how am I going to distribute it? Prior to Adobe Captivate 4 I would generally upload it to my FTP account and provide my students or workshops participants with a link to the streaming media. While this has worked out fine it was great to learn that in Adobe Captivate 4 you could publish your finished video as a PDF file- making it even easier to distribute.

When you are ready to publish go to the Publish icon and make sure to select Export PDF in the dialog box. You will notice that you can also export the HTML and your SWF file as well in one fell swoop. The process is very straight forward and when you are done you will have your SWF video and PDF published to the designated folder. If you would like you could also store your finished PDF file on Acrobat.com so that others could download it to their computer. Since the PDF has encapsulated the video you will want to download the PDF file and open it with Adobe Acrobat Reader 9 to view. Having the capability to publish the video tutorials to a PDF is a great feature and one that you should explore. Being able to distribute my tutorials in the PDF format is a real advantage since everyone has access to the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

You can download a video tutorial that I recently made about Blogger by clicking here.

Export as Mindjet Player Tip- Linking Documents

I for one am having a great deal of fun experimenting with the new Export as Mindjet Player feature that can be found in MindManager 8. I have begun to export all of my MindManager maps to this format so that I can share them with my students on their Blackboard accounts. I have all of my lectures mapped out with links to web sites which I use for every class. Back in the days of MindManager 7, I would export my MindManager maps to PDF and post them to Blackboard, but the links were no longer live which always presented a problem. Now with the new Export as Mindjet Player I can put the maps on Blackboard and ask my students to open it and they can quickly jump from web site to web site as we talk about different topics. This has been a tremendous time saver for me. If you have taught using the internet- it is cumbersome when you have to stop and write the URL on the board and invariably some of your students are going to misspell the link and have trouble getting to where you want them to be.

One of the limitation of the first release of Export as Mindjet Player is that you can not embed your attachments. After thinking about this for a little while, I realized that while you can't attach documents that are stored on your computer, however, what about your documents that are stored on Google Docs or Acrobat.com? Instead of attaching documents to my MindManager maps I could simply hyperlink them to my documents. Yes- this does limit the number of attachments but it gets the job done. It was certainly worth trying and in fact my solution does work. Here is how to do it. In Google Docs open up your document that you want to be able to share and click the Share tab and select Publish as Web page. This will automatically create a unique URL that you can share with other to access your Google Docs. Now just create a link in Mindjet MindManager with that unique URL and you are ready to go. Remember you can also upload your Microsoft Word documents and bring them into Google Docs and be able to accomplish the same thing.

I have been using Acrobat.com for a lot of the consulting work that I am doing and it is just as easy to link your documents (Word, Excel, PDF's, etc) in your Acrobat.com account to your MindManager 8 maps and then Export as Mindjet Player and retain the attachments. In fact you will find the process a lot easier. Once you go to the MyFiles directory- simply select the file you want to link and make sure that you have selected Open Access which will let you share your files with others. Now simply click on the Copy URL button. Once you are back in MindManager 8 select the topic you want to link it to and bring up the Add Hyperlink and paste the link in. Now when you Export as Mindjet Player you will be able to access your documents from anywhere when you are connected to the internet.

While I hope that at some point in time we will be able to attach documents that can be embedded into the Mindjet Player for now this is a workaround that should serve us well for maps that we would like to share with others. Let me know what you think of this strategy. You can preview the file that I created by clicking here.

Brian's Update

It has been a busy couple of weeks along with being under the weather which has made it difficult for me to blog. I trust that I will be back on schedule next week with some posts, so look for them. It really is a juggling act getting all that needs to get done-but I'm pushing through.

Just today I mailed out an issue of Inclusion Times that was past due and worked on the Fall issue. For the past 4 years I have written and published Inclusion Times, which is geared towards educators who are working with students with disabilities. Over the past two year, I have expanded the coverage to include new and innovative technologies that are important for educators to know about. Because it is a traditional newsletter that goes out to individual educators and libraries I have printed, collated, and mailed out this newsletters via the post office. This process is more time consuming than you can imagine and because it is a niche newsletter I decided this year that I would produce Inclusion Times in an electronic version (PDF file) that my subscribers could download. This will not only save me time, energy but a will allow me to get the newsletter out that much quicker. To get a free sample of Inclusion Times click here or you can view the embedded PDF right within the blog post. If you like what you see let me know and I can get you set up with a subscription. I will let you know how this process works- in any case this is the way of the future!

Creating PDF Portfolios in Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended

I have been a long time user of Adobe Acrobat and use it extensively in the work that I do as a professor and technology consultant. While many of us are used to using Adobe Acrobat Reader- you don't really understand the power and utility of Adobe Acrobat until you start working with with the Standard, Pro or Pro Extended versions. When Adobe announced that they had just released version 9 of Adobe Acrobat, I knew that I had to take a look at it and see what new features it offered. I once again would like to thank Roman from A & R Edelman for providing me with a review copy of Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended. There are currently four different versions in the Adobe 9 product line which include: Reader, Standard, Pro, and Pro Extended. Each version has a different set of features which are delineated on this matrix provided by Adobe. For the purpose of this review I am going to be speaking about Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended version which has the most advanced feature rich set.

In this post, I will highlight two very exciting features which I know will change the way we think about PDF's (Portable Document Format) and how we use them. On the top of my list is the introduction of portfolio's and the ability to play Flash assets within a PDF which takes this version to a whole new level. Let me start off by talking about the Portfolio feature which I know will make us all rethink how we create and distribute information that we produce. I'm sure that if you are like me, you often get emails with several PDF attachments. When the email is delivered into your inbox you have no idea which one to open first and once they are opened you then have to save them to a folder and organize them in some way so that they are useful to you. Well all of that has changed with the concept of creating a PDF Portfolio with Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended (Portfolio's can be created with the Standard and Pro editions of Acrobat).

Now imagine that you can now take your existing PDF files, SWF files, Word files, Excel documents, and picture files and create one unitary portfolio which stores all of your documents. When you are ready to share your documents via an email attachment there is only one file to attach. While this is certainly an improvement over the way we used to do it, now imagine that you have the ability to craft the portfolio so that it has the look and feel that you hope to achieve for your communication. Once you begin to create your portfolio you can choose a layout, add a welcome and header, select a color scheme, specify file details, and publish the portfolio. I found it very easy to create the look an feel that I wanted and I was able to add my picture to personalize my portfolio. I choose to use the Revolve layout which gave me a sort of cover flow effect that you might find on your iPod. To add the files to my portfolio- it was as simple as dragging them into the portfolio from my desktop where they were stored. You should note that my PDF Portfolio contains several different types of files, just to show you the power of this new feature. I included a Word document, a Captivate SWF movies, and several PDF files. Acrobat allowed me to use the nice blue color schemes from a large palette of colors. One of the really impressive features is the ability to present your documents in the order you desire when the recipient receives them. By creating an Order field within Acrobat, I was able to place a number from 1 to 6 into the field and then sort the documents so that they appear in the order that I want. As you create your PDF Portfolio there are lots of features that you can change to insure that it looks and behaves as you wish. Before publishing your PDF Portfolio there are lots of ways that Acrobat allows you secure your PDF portfolio. Click here to watch how I created a PDF Portfolio in Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended

What really got me excited is the way Adobe Acrobat 9 handles files within the portfolio. You will see if you download my PDF Portfolio that Acrobat will allow you preview your Word and Excel files right within the portfolio. You will also note that I placed a Captivate 3 swf demonstration video within the PDF file that plays right within Adobe Acrobat Reader 9, without the need of any additional players. This feature alone is huge. Imagine being able to great technical and training guides complete with Flash videos embedded right within the PDF. With Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended you can easily embed Flash video within your Word and PowerPoint presentations. Once you install Adobe Acrobat 9 Extended you will now have a new Acrobat menu embedded within Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. By simply using the Embed Video drop down you can insert Flash and FLV videos right within your documents that are automatically converted to Flash when you publish your PDF's. This is truly an awesome feature and one that will change the way we think about how we use PDF's for training and distributing information. Remember you will need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader 9 to view the Portfolio.

As part of Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended you also get the added bonus of Adobe Presenter 7 which is an add-in to PowerPoint. I must say a very powerful add-in to say the least. I have highlighted the use of Adobe Presenter in a previous post- so if you missed it here is the link.

Acrobat.com-Embedding PDF's on Your Blog

Over the past year I have watched the Acrobat.com website flesh out its free offerings which I have to say are quite impressive. I have been a big fan of Adobe Acrobat for years and not only use it for my own work but have also used it as an access tool for some of the students that I work with that have physical disabilities. More about this feature in a later post.

While reading the Acrobat Blog I came across a couple of tips and features that I wanted to share with you. First off, if you don't have an Acrobat account sign-up for one- you will find it very handy. If for no other reason, just so you will have another online repository for your files-but it can do a lot more than that. In this tip you can upload or create a PDF file if you don't own Acrobat Standard or Professional right on the Acrobat.com website. Once you have your PDF file uploaded you can click on the Copy Embed Code which will then allow you to post the PDF to your website or blog in a widget. By simply pasting the code into my blog, I am now able to generate a widget that displays my PDF file. You can see the result of this technique below.


Using Acrobat.com gives you the freedom to post and share your PDF files using the embed feature without using a lot of overhead. It is a simple and easy way to share your information in the ubiquitous PDF format. From the widget, individuals can zoom in on the file and download it if they like. Take a look at this feature-with it it is now even easier to share PDF files than ever before on your website or blog.

Three days at NECC....

Three days at NECC. I spent the last three days at NECC, looking at new technologies, new software and new hardware. Educators have lots to be excited about. HP and Asus were showing off their mini laptops which were both small in stature and price. The exhibition hall was filled with companies tauting their interactive whiteboards and the impact it will have on learning in the classroom. Both Smart and Promethian had some of the largest booths on the floor and had many teachers doing live demonstrations. Mimio was also there showing off their latest release of MimioStudio 6 and the release of the Mimio Pad, a hand held portable tablet. Many of the vendors were demonstrating various response systems and there is definitely a move towards a totally digital classroom. The digital classroom would include an interactive whiteboard, data projector, response system, document camera, and a audio sound field system. Of course Web 2.0 and collaboration was another key trend. Software as a service is here to stay and there were many companies who were showing off their software applications that are hosted solutions right through the browser. Crick Software was demonstrating Write Online and FTC Publishing was demoing WriteIt Live. With Hyperstudio back there seemed to be excitement about multimedia and project based learning. Adobe was showing off their creative tools and showing off Adobe Acrobat 9, which has some very strong multimedia features. It is now possible to embed a Flash video and create a Portfolio of individual PDF's which can be viewed with Adobe Acrobat Reader. Adobe was also demonstrating Adobe Acrobat website which gives you data storage, Buzzword, and Sharing capabilities. Acrobat.com is a wonderful website and one each and every teacher should set up immediately. Acorbat.com holds much promise for collaboration and all of the tools are free.