The teaching contect for adult literacy instructors differs somewhat from other instructors. In my case, I would like to engage different learners who are working independently on different subjects at different levels. I would like to have a way to record, search and track activities of learenrs so I am able to quickly orient myself to what the students have been doing without always having to rely on memeory. With thirty students registered in the evenign or summer section, and with some students attending classes more frequently than others, and with such a variation in the amount of work completed and progress made, I need some way to manage it better and more efficiently.

Enter the electronic pen. I tried using the FlyPen, a now obsolete technology that captured what I wrote and converted it to either images or text. I still use it, and it still works fine. I picked up a couple of them for a cheap price when the product stopped being produced. The notebooks are still available. Without them, you cannot use the device. So, my object lesson: I will never ever buy a technology that depends on accessories to function (like notepaper, or ink refills).

A (hopefully) more solid proposition is the use of the NoteTaker pen, (Iris Notes). For one thing, I can write on normal paper, and don't need to buy special note-taking paper to use the pen and digitize what I write or draw. I don't need to use a flash drive - it stores up to 50 A4 size pages of notes before I need to download them. I can convert the handwritten notes to MS Word, and the cost is reasonable - for $150 it is a useful tool to help me maange the notes I make, and I dont have to spend extra time typing out my scratch notes or field notes. That alone is a great time-saver! It is also compatible with different versions of Windows as well: XP, Vista, and Windows 7. I am unclear yet if I can use this with my Net-book - the minimum resolution is 1024 x 768.

A comparable electronic pen technology is logipen, selling for $110. It has a comparable set of features to the Note-Taker device.

Finally, LiveScribe offers pen-casting. It sounds interesting, and it could have some useful applications for literacy instruction. However, with the price tag at about $200, I cannot really justify its purchase. I can pick up a digital voice recorder for $40 to append the audio to my notes, and use the free audio-editing software, Audacity, to polish up the presentation of the MP3. I cannot really see the use of the LiveScribe in a classroom setting, where noise and ambient sounds are going to be issues. Privacy is another issue to consider in a public classroom. Thus, any form of audio-recording would need to be in a private space, not in a classroom.

The other factor I have to consider is the nature of the technical support, the extent of the user community, the support for older technologies and versions, and if I can even buy it in Canada. If I cannot, is the priority shipping fee of about $60 worth it, when it will take an extra month to ship it by regular post? Choices, choices.