Studying is a challenging activity among students and there are techniques that they need to implement to gain good results. Among many learning tools, digital smartpens can potentially assist some or many students. In essence, a digital smartpen is useful for storing audio recording of the lectures as students write down notes. Recorded audio files can be transferred to computers or mobile devices for easier access and playbacks. Recording can also be shared among students, which will increase quality of learning and comprehension. When used properly, digital smartpens should be able to save hours of our time, especially for transcribing, taking notes, searching and organizing. Thus, digital smartpens are ideal for aiding very busy students. The task of taking notes itself is already quite challenging for many students. They often find it difficult to organize notes, so content can become highly accessible. When students take notes haphazardly, they can end up with something meaningless. Problems may also happen when miss lectures due to illnesses or various activities at colleges or schools.
When choosing digital smartpens, it is important that these devices can capture complete recording of all notes in integrated and synchoronized manner. This will ease sharing and retrieval later. Some models allow students to replay recorded audios at different paces. When lecturers talk very quickly at specific moment, students can slow the playback, so they won’t miss a single word. Foreign students may also have problems with fast speech, so this feature will also aid their understanding. Digital smartpens should have advanced audio control features, so everything can be replayed at proper pace. Dyslexic students or other students with various learning issues can also find digital smartpens useful, because they may have problem dealing with text-based information. As an example, Aspergers syndrome and autism are also issues that can make learning problematic. With the right tools, students can improve their overall confidence and they will be able to understand all the presentation content.
Audio recordings can be tagged with keywords at certain timestamps. So, students can skip to certain parts of the recordings to get specific information that they need. Audio recordings can be shared in social media, such as YouTube and Facebook. It could also be converted into podcasts for easy downloads. It means that students don’t need to store too many files in their hard drives or cloud accounts. Again, this will further enhance note exchange and searching. Shared audio sessions recorded by by digital pens are typically called pencasts, which is also a type of podcasts. Unlike regular podcasts, pencasts are focused more on lecture sessions, where students can get quick explanations to their problems. So, whether students need digital smartpens or not, may depend on whether they have good note taking capabilities or not. For students who find it problematic to have good notes due to internal or external problems, it’s a good idea to use digital smartpens. As an example, lecturers may discourage note-taking during their sessions. This could be a problem for students who poorly absorb information through listening alone.