i202 Fall 2010 School of Information, UC Berkeley

Students often suffer from information overload. We are constantly organizing and retrieving orally disseminated information via the act of note-taking. In an attempt to better organize my own jumbled mess of typed notes, I decided to use the Livescribe echo smart pen. In addition to my own experience, I have conducted several usability interviews with undergraduate students who use the pen. In this blog entry, I will describe the pen's basic functionality. I will then present different ways that students (including myself) use the pen. And, I will end with an article from The New York Times.

The echo smart pen looks like this: http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/smartpen/. Encased in the barrel of the pen is an infrared camera that synchs handwritten notes to recorded audio. The audio tracks are indexed by marks that the ink makes on the page. The tracts are especially helpful in situations where the lecturer speaks fast or when the student struggles to recognize what's important enough to write down. For example, if I fail to ingest what Bob says about the 6th slide on any given day, all I need to do is tap where I've written "slide 6" and the accompanying audio will play. This is an organizing system defined by user, who is also the only person who needs to access the information. 

This technology is being tested by UC Berkeley's Disabled Students Program (DSP). The DSP loans the pen to students with learning disabilities, such as ADHD and dyslexia. The hope is that the echo smart pen will improve the organization and quality of student's notes.

I interviewed several students as part of the DSP's usability study. One of these students created a personalized method of organizing notes by annotating categories, such as "test" for concepts that will be on a midterm. In contrast, another student who tried to write every word uttered by his professor, suffered from information overload.

It strikes me that the first student is more IO focused, while the second student lacks the ability to discern what is and isn't important, which requires him to focus on IR instead of retention while studying. It's also worth mentioning that the second student's grades have suffered because he grossly underestimated the amount of time necessary to retrieve information. 

Note-taking and studying requires a personal information management (PIM) system. However, students who use the echo smart pen are challenged to reconsider their methods of organization. For example, as stated in The New York Times article, students can tag their notes with keywords instead of writing "traditional notes that include sentences." When it's time to review, student's simply tap the keyword to play the accompanying audio. Additionally, the pen's desktop software recognizes handwritten characters, which enables a keyword search of any written word. This means that students who use the echo smart can pay more attention while in lecture instead of focusing on writing everything the professor says. 

Personally, I've had the pen for about 2 months and I have yet to figure out a note-taking method that strikes a balance between IO and IR. For example, before the i202 midterm, I habitually wrote almost everything that Bob said. However, the vast amount of unorganized information was a pain to review. So, I now try to relax my hand and only write keywords and main points. Hopefully, this method will streamline my future retrieval process

• What is being organized – Whatever the pen's owner writes, for example, class notes.

• Why it is being organized – This is a personalized information management system. Notes are organized so that information can be retrieved in times of need. For example, I can search for each instance of "document type spectrum" in my notebook. The results allow me to see the  term's context, and if my written notes fail me, I can click to retrieve the accompanying audio.  

• How much is it being organized – The guiding principles are set by each user. 

• When is it being organized – Whether notes are IO or IR heavy depends on the individual's priorities. 

• By whom (or by what computational processes) it is being organized – by individuals

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/magazine/19Livescribe-t.html?_r=1&scp=...