Retrospective comments

Follow-up to Livescribe Pulse Pen in Second–Year Maths Methods Module from Mike Allen's blog

Now the dust has settled on the exams, I can look back over the year. The students did well in both modules, with mark distributions well within the expected norms. I got some more favourable comments from students during the revision period: the combination of audio, handwritten lecture notes, and a full set of background notes online, seems to have worked well.

Livescribe have now released new software called Livescribe Connect, which addresses one of the main deficiencies: now I can export the pencasts to interactive PDF files (including audio), which can be hosted straightforwardly on Sitebuilder, with no need to use the Livescribe site. Also it will make it possible to view the pencasts on a wider range of platforms, for example the iPad. Thanks to Rob Low at Coventry University (Applied Maths) for spotting this upgrade as soon as it came out – he is one of the people who noticed that I was trying this approach, and was also encouraged to give it a go! Needless to say, the software and firmware upgrade was not smooth, requiring Livescribe Customer Support to look into it and, within a few days, release a bug-fixed version of their software. But I’m getting used to that.

Anyway, the experiment has been very successful, and with the improved software I’ll certainly do this all again in my modules next year.

Michael Allen : 06 Jul 2011 18:39 |  Tags: ITS Livescribe |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Livescribe Pulse Pen in Second–Year Maths Methods Module

Follow-up to Livescribe Pulse Pen in Second–Year Maths Methods Module from Mike Allen's blog

I have skimmed through the student feedback forms for this module, and they are overwhelmingly positive about the pencasts, although one or two drawbacks have been pointed out. Several students ask if I could convert my colleagues into lecturing this way – I don’t know about trying to convert them, but perhaps at least a few of them might try this approach, or something similar using a computer graphics tablet from Wacom, Trust etc, or (of course) an actual tablet computer. I certainly think that for this kind of material (Maths) this is better, as far as the student learning experience goes, than showing PDFs or Powerpoint slides. So I would encourage some of my colleagues to try it, particularly since the newer generation pen (the Echo) is out, and it looks more comfortable to hold. But be aware, the software is a bit crude and the user support matches it.

The next key stage is to see how the students cope when revising! They will need to easily access the lecture material, probably from home, and any supporting material. A key element of this module, like the one I delivered last term, is a comprehensive set of online notes in the form of an easily-navigable (I hope) PDF hypertext document. This should complement what was presented in the lectures. Also, I have strongly encouraged the use of Forums for asking questions over the vacation. The next few weeks will be interesting.

Michael Allen : 18 Mar 2011 16:19 |  Tags: ITS Livescribe |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem

Livescribe Pulse Pen in Second–Year Maths Methods Module

Follow-up to Livescribe Pulse Pen in Second–Year Maths Methods Module from Mike Allen's blog

Apart from a few more minor hitches, the Livescribe pen has worked OK throughout the second-year module. At some point the ink cartridge ran out, but the replacement was very easy. In one or two instances the audio just continued over two pages in the workbook, which I suspect is due to “pausing” and then “stopping” the recording, which seems not to work as I expected. When I take care to “continue” after “pausing”, and before “stopping”, I don’t seem to get this problem.

My uploaded files at Livescribe now amount to 750MB, which substantially exceeds the nominal limit of 500MB. However, they seem not to have figured out a practical charging model, so they do not currently enforce the 500MB limit, which is lucky.

More irritatingly, the files stored on my little laptop also amount to a fair size: nearly 1GB, and they are stored under C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Livescribe in a hidden directory. This location turns out to be hardwired into the software, and cannot be set or reset by the user, which is very amateurish. Livescribe have relied on user contributions to their forums to suggest workarounds involving establishing links between Windows folders (or a link to a Dropbox location). Since I have a fairly standard dual-boot ITS configuration, the C partition is not enormous, and I routinely store user data on the D partition, so this dreadful kludge by Livescribe is quite inconvenient. Probably it will be less significant when we drop the dual-boot laptop configuration, but it is still an example of the mentality of the company.

Anyway, we seem to have made it to the end of the term without major disasters, and my next post will summarize and review my experiences and the student feedback that I’ve received.

Michael Allen : 18 Mar 2011 15:40 |  Tags: ITS Livescribe |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem

Livescribe Pulse Pen in Second–Year Maths Methods Module

Follow-up to Livescribe Pulse Pen – Review from Mike Allen's blog

We are three weeks in to my second-year module, PX261 Mathematical Methods for Physicists II, and it seems a good point to review how things are going. Having had good experiences with my third-year module last term, I was encouraged to continue with the Pulse Pen, in much the same way as before. You can check out the pencasts and other support materials starting at the PX261 home page and as before a comprehensive set of notes, provided as a hypertext document online, is an essential complement to the pencasts themselves.

The audience is bigger for this module: about 175 students are registered, as opposed to 75 for my third-year option PX366. The audience noise is correspondingly higher, especially at the start of each lecture when they are very slow to settle down. Apart from that, most issues of sound quality seem to have been sorted out. The lectures are given in ACCR, the Arts Centre Conference Room. This is not the favourite lecturing venue of my colleagues, and indeed Physics has shifted other classes away from it in drawing up this year’s timetable. But it does have a visualiser. Unfortunately, the AV facilities are not perfect. The fixed microphone is located far away from the visualiser, so it is completely useless. This leaves me to rely on the wireless microphone, a rechargeable type, and very frequently the previous lecturers fail to recharge the batteries so it is dead when I arrive. I have taken to bringing my own batteries with me. Not ideal.

It has been harder to get student feedback from this group, so although I have had one or two positive comments, they are not letting me know whether this approach is working or not. One student has pointed out that it would be better if the writing were thicker, and easier to see on the visualizer, which is probably a fair point. Unfortunately the cartridges provided with the pen come only in one size. Interestingly, I have found some discussion on the Livescribe-related forums, of buying other cartridges and physically hacking them so that they fit the pen; I’m not going to try that.

I have also started to encounter some limitations of the Livescribe product. The supporting software, or rather the pen firmware, is updated from time to time. This process quite often fails, causing technical issues and loss of recordings and/or disconnection between the visual pages and the audio. Sometimes the only solution is to re-record a lecture. The customer support when problems like this occur is not very good. It relies on a user forums system (or on making calls to a telephone number in the USA). Most often, the advice seems to be of the “turn it off and on again” variety, or more precisely “re-flash the firmware and hold on to your butts”. I wouldn’t recommend it for people who have no experience of poor or unreliable support for computer-related things.

Despite all this, I am sticking with it, and will keep the situation under review.

Michael Allen : 29 Jan 2011 11:38 |  Tags: Livescribe |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem

Livescribe Pulse Pen – Review

Follow-up to Livescribe Pulse Pen – Third Test from Mike Allen's blog

My 3rd-year course is over, and it is time for a review. I managed to post pencasts for every lecture: two thirds of the lectures used a visualiser, so the recordings were made live, and one third were scheduled in a room without a visualiser, so they had to be recorded in my office afterwards. I deliberately restricted pencasts to one A4 page each, lasting 10-15 minutes, because re-recording would otherwise be a major investment of effort, and editing is not feasible. So each lecture typically contained 3 or 4 of these pencasts. They are all available on the Livescribe web site, links can be found on my PX366 module page

Student feedback was overwhelmingly positive. They really appreciated being able to go over the material in this way (supplemented by a comprehensive, and more conventional, set of lecture notes also provided online). Two of the three slots per week were scheduled at 9am, so turnout was going to be below average in any case; also some students had timetable clashes with other courses, so they also were grateful for the chance to play back the lectures that they missed in this way. I got a lot of encouragement from the students during the course, and plenty of favourable comments on the feedback forms.

Technically, the pen worked quite well, once I got some control over the sound levels. This was the main problem. With the built-in microphone picking up the scratching noise of pen against paper, and too much background noise arising from suspending the pair of microphones over my shoulders as suggested in the Livescribe documentation, I settled on fixing them to some kind of makeshift stand, to be placed as far away as permitted by the cable. Initially, I fixed them to a small figurine of Wallace (of Wallace and Gromit fame) but sadly, he fell over backwards one day and broke his neck. So instead I used a heavier figure, an outsize Lewis chess piece. You can see both of these illustrated here together with the special notebook used for the notes, and the pen with connecting cable. I experimented a bit with sound levels; most successful was to follow Livescribe’s advice and pick “Automatic” setting of microphone sensitivity; my one attempt to set it at “Lecture Hall” sensitivity ended up with me sounding like a Dalek. Positioning the microphones as far away as possible, with some kind of shielding against audience noise, was reasonably successful. The quality is never brilliant, but it seems comprehensible. The only remaining problem, never solved, was an occasional period of noise, like a rushing sound, presumably due to some dodgy contact or effect of static electricity, apparently uncorrelated with anything actually happening in the lecture. We just have to put up with this.
I am sufficiently encouraged to try this same approach with my larger second-year course, next term, on Mathematical Methods. We’ll see how it goes …. watch this space.

Michael Allen : 15 Dec 2010 22:44 |  Tags: Livescribe |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem

Livescribe Pulse Pen – Third Test

Follow-up to Livescribe Pulse Pen – Second Test from Mike Allen's blog

After some experimentation I have had another go, which is uploaded here

I’ve positioned the microphone further away, which has eliminated some extraneous noise, although it still picks up some breathing. Anyway, nothing is ever perfect, I think I’m ready to give it a go and see what the students think. They may not be too impressed with the production quality, but it will be interesting to see if it helps in any way and if the effort is worthwhile.

The pencasts for my course are linked on the module web page http://go.warwick.ac.uk/px366 and student feedback appears on the associated Forum.

Michael Allen : 08 Nov 2010 21:08 |  Tags: Livescribe |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem

Livescribe Pulse Pen – Second Test

Follow-up to Livescribe Pulse Pen – First Test from Mike Allen's blog

Here’s my second test. I have got more used to pausing and resuming the recording session now. I am using the earphone-microphones, which reduce the noise of scratching when I write (but not entirely). On the other hand, there is still some extraneous noise, and the sound of my breathing is quite noticeable. I haven’t found a way of avoiding this yet – need to experiment a bit more with positioning. The cable from the pen to the microphones is not especially long, which is a bit limiting. Anyway, I have uploaded my effort here

I can’t say that my vocal delivery was very impressive either. For some reason, I seem to be very self conscious when using this device. Oh well, some more tests coming soon, and I may start to try it out on students to get their feedback.

Michael Allen : 07 Nov 2010 21:02 |  Tags: Livescribe |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem

Livescribe Pulse Pen – First Test

Follow-up to Livescribe Pulse Pen – Installation from Mike Allen's blog

The Pulse pen comes with an A5 starter notebook of 50 sheets, which I used for my first test. I simply wrote a page of stuff off the top of my head, recording on the pen’ s microphone. The result is part a . After I stopped recording, I started again just to add a little more at the end, giving part b .

I learned several things straight off.

1. With the chosen audio sensitivity (“automatic”) the pen picks up the scratching sound it makes when writing on the paper. Obviously this would be very distracting! However the pen comes with a set of earphones-cum-microphones which can be hung round the neck, over-riding the built-in microphone, which may solve the problem, and I’ll try using those next time.
2. I need to learn how to combine several audio segments into one upload, if this is possible.
3. In my initial, off-the-cuff, ramblings, I tended to simply read out what I was writing, sometimes slowing down to Robert-Peston-like speed and monotonicity. This obviously will not be good enough, I need to be much more like I would be when using a blackboard, i.e. speaking at the right time, at the right pace, and staying quiet when this is appropriate. Practice, hopefully, will improve this!
4. I need to keep an eye on the legibility of the replayed pencast. I intend to use A4, not A5, in the lectures, and to employ normal sized handwriting if possible (notwithstanding the fact that the smartpen itself is a very chunky thing, about 15 mm diameter!). But how much control do our Flash players give over the size of the image? I haven’t yet discovered how to fit the width (rather than the height) to my screen dimensions.

Michael Allen : 04 Aug 2010 15:22 |  Tags: Livescribe |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem

Livescribe Pulse Pen – Installation

Follow-up to Livescribe Pulse Pen – A preamble from Mike Allen's blog

I eventually ordered the 4GB (memory) Livescribe Pulse smartpen from an authorized reseller, Livescribe Europe, along with a set of ink refills and a pack of 4 A4 notebooks. I shan’t waste space here describing the way the pen works in detail, you can easily find that out elsewhere; but it’s worth noting that the paper is special, using a dense pattern of microscopic dots to allow the pen, which is equipped with an IR camera, to know where it is. The refills are also proprietary. All this stuff arrived quite speedily from the suppliers. It was all in good shape, although the pen refills are so thin they managed to slip out of their packaging, and might easily have escaped from the outer box, so I guess I was lucky.

Rather irritatingly, immediately afterwards Livescribe launched a new smartpen called the Echo, which looks a bit more svelte and slightly more feature-rich, but never mind.

Now, I should say, the Livescribe web site, and particularly their user forum area, is not a great advert for the product. There are plenty of rants and raves (indeed, a special section just for those!) mostly dealing with unreliable software and confusing documentation. So I went into this with my eyes open, knowing that I might have to do some searching for the solutions to problems and glitches. The pen itself has its own software, which is downloaded via a docking cradle with USB connection to a PC (you can see that I’m a Windows person). The PC needs to have a piece of software called the “Livescribe Desktop” installed, which acts as a local store for your pencasts, and a gateway to the Livescribe online facility where you can upload them for public access (and indeed, see other peoples’ offerings). It seems slightly reminiscent of ITunes. The first “gotcha” is the interplay between the pen and the PC. Item number 1 in the “Getting Started Guide” says that you may need to charge your smartpen by placing it in the cradle and connecting it to the computer. But if you read ahead to item number 6 you see a warning that you should install Livescribe Desktop before connecting the cradle! Several online rants testify to the trouble that may have resulted from following instruction 1 before instruction 6. Anyway, in my case, installation of software on PC and pen, as well as battery charging, went fine.

It takes a moment to get used to giving the pen instructions by tapping it on particular areas of the getting started guide. So, for example, to check the battery level, you tap on a “battery” button which is drawn on the paper – the picture of the battery is not the important thing, of course, it is the location which, as always, is identified by the underlying, almost invisible, dot pattern. Similarly you configure it for left handed or right handed use, set the time and date, and so on, just by tapping in appropriate places. The “Getting started” guide leads you through this fairly straightforwardly, and then there is a double-sided A4 sheet containing a short tutorial to familiarize you with navigation and the audio recording and replay basics. Seemed fine to me.

Next step was to record, replay, and upload a test piece of my own, and I’ll describe how that went in my next entry.

Michael Allen : 04 Aug 2010 14:37 |  Tags: Livescribe |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem

Livescribe Pulse Pen – A preamble

This (irregular) series of blog posts will describe my experiences with the smartpen from Livescribe, which I have bought to try out in teaching a Physics undergraduate module in 2010/11. The target is a module on Statistical Physics which I am taking over next year; the module has a fairly high mathematical content. This first post gives some of the background.

In recent years I have tended to use very carefully prepared PDF presentations in lectures (typeset using LaTeX, of course, Powerpoint is pretty much useless IMHO) supported by printed handouts; the handouts have spaces on them for the student to fill in the more important material during the lecture, as the relevant content is revealed on the screen. Examples appear in one of my other modules, Mathematical Methods for Physicists II. (Edit: now that material from last year has been replaced by this year’s pencasts). This has several advantages: the student notes end up being accurate and comprehensive, the mathematical formulae are very clear, the students don’t need to write frantically during the lecture, but they do write down something so the entire exercise is not reduced to reading through a handout. The slides are available online afterwards for them to check, or in case they miss a lecture. This approach gets, on average, good student feedback. But it does have disadvantages: the approach is rather sterile and artificial, almost robotic; the students can see that it is pre-planned down to the last comma. A small minority of students really dislike this, especially for mathematical material.

It’s a perfectly arguable that students like seeing mathematical derivations worked through in front of them, live (to say nothing of worked examples), and it’s no coincidence that the new Mathematics building (the Zeeman building) is amply provided with blackboards. In years gone by, I was quite happy to deliver entire courses on the blackboard, but this limits the options for the student to go over the material afterwards. Now, in many lecture theatres at Warwick, we have “visualisers” installed, which allow the lecturer to write with pen and paper, projecting the results on the screen for the students to copy. The sheets of paper can then be scanned and provided online afterwards. An alternative might be to use a tablet computer in a similar way, although I have to admit that I have never taken to those. But neither of these options give the accompanying audio: what the lecturer was saying at the time. For that, one would need a full-blown podcast recorded in the lecture.

This year I came across the Livescribe smartpen, which seemed to be worth trying in a teaching context to tackle all these points. In a nutshell, it records the writing of a real pen on real paper, simultaneously with the audio. It is possible to replay the audio through the pen from any desired point, by tapping at the appropriate place in the notes: clearly one target group would be students sitting in a lecture, it is an aid to note taking. Also the manufacturers hope that people would use it to record minutes of a meeting along with what was actually said. But an additional feature is that these recordings can be transferred to a PC and uploaded as a “pencast”: a podcast containing just the essentials, namely what was written and what was spoken, without the distraction of seeing the lecturer walking aimlessly up and down at the front of the lecture theatre. Essentially this takes the form of a Flash animation, I believe, replaying both the writing and the audio, in real time, from any desired point. It can be converted to simple PDF without audio if desired. So, although the quality of the notes wouldn’t be as good as LaTeX/PDF, the option for students to revisit the material, or catch up on lectures that they had missed, would still be there. Of course, I would still prepare much neater material in handout form, and as presentation slides, as appropriate, concentrating on using the smartpen for mathematical derivations and the like.

I consulted with John Dale of ITS to see if this had been tried before at Warwick, or if he could see any drawbacks, and he seemed very positive. So I decided to go ahead, and the following entries will describe my experiences with this gadget as I practise with it over the summer, and then deliver in the autumn term of 2010. I can’t promise to update these entries very frequently, especially after this initial flurry, but I’ll try to let people know how things go; and of course, comments and questions are welcome.

Michael Allen : 04 Aug 2010 13:59 |  Tags: ITS Livescribe |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem