Take Notes With A Pen - Digitally

A Learning Secret: Don%u2019t Take Notes with a Laptop - Scientific American. The premise of this article is that students and others retain more if they use a pen and paper to take notes. This makes sense, since the user must concentrate on the words in a way that voice or typing can't replicate. But, what if you could combine the benefits of manual note taking with the efficiency of the computer? Of course, you can, and I have written before about the marvelous LiveScribe Echo digital pen. Notes are taken  on LiveScribe paper, which has thousands of invisible dots that track the progress of the Smartpen over the page, using an infrared sensor parallel to the ball point pen tip. Then, the image is stored in the USB drive of the pen, and easily transferred to the computer via USB cable. The included software creates digital images of the pages, which can be converted to text if you wish, or stored and viewed on the computer. Additionally, the pen contains a voice recorder and microphone, which can be used to store a contemporaneous recording of the seminar or meeting. So, take notes manually, which forces you to summarize, digest and listen better. Then, access your notes digitally on your computer. Truly the best of both worlds.