Since I was a bit wrong about Papershow’s purpose, I wanted to clear that up. Here is a bit straight from the US distributor.
The purpose of Papershow is to allow presenters, teachers, marketers, etc. to give interactive presentations while also having the ability to annotate their presentations on the fly. While aspects of the Papershow pen are similar to the Pulse Smart Pen, Papershow as an entire product, which consists of three components, is very unique. The Papershow interactive paper, USB key and Bluetooth pen working together allow someone to give a presentation, conduct a brainstorm or teach a class all from a notepad, and that person can be 20 feet away from the computer. After annotating a presentation or conducting a whiteboard session, Papershow allows you to save all of the notes as a PDF, and then print or e-mail them to anyone you would like.
Papershow is a similar concept as the SMART Airliner wireless slate and eInstruction tablets, but it is much less expensive, it’s just $199 for the starter kit. Also, with Papershow, you are physically writing with ink on paper, rather than an electronic tablet, and this is then projected on the screen which creates more of a “magic†effect. Papershow is very portable too, and easy to carry around, as it’s just the pen, USB key and pad of paper or presentation binder.
You’ll note the comparison against SMART Airliners (which I don’t like much) and other tablets. This is because I mentioned that it seemed a likely market for Papershow.
I’ll test it out a bit this week with students to see how they like it compared to the Airliner.
One of my morning “regulars†is in that class, and his group is creating a “critic’s corner†for their newsletter. After getting a “no†on anything that might criticize a specific teacher or student, and getting shot down on love, sex, drugs, or profanity, the group has finally come up with a new topic they are enthusiastically researching for their contribution. It will be a critique of the new student login and restrictions on the computer. The plan to write about blocked sites, no icons, the inability to make a workspace that is “theirs†(translated they want a cool background on their desktop, their own bookmarks, etc.) and get this: they are going to QUOTE me making my statement.
