Teaching, Technology, and Learning

I'm getting ready to head to Virginia Tech for the 2009 Workshop on the Impact of Pen-Based Technology on Education. I'll leave Sunday, Oct. 11 and return Wednesday, Oct. 14 and get to spend 6 hours in the Chicago airport on the way back :) I have a poster promoting PenAttention that I'll present at the conference.

I've never attended WIPTE but I've read the proceedings from previous conferences and have been impressed with the work, so I'm really looking forward to attending this year and being among a crowd of like-minded pen enthusiasts!

I received a few emails asking for a version of PenAttention that runs on Windows XP (not Tablet PC edition), primarily for folks using an external tablet like a Wacom USB tablet. Apparently the cursor still gets changed to a dot for those using external tablets, but the Tablet PC extensions that the program assumes exist cause the program to crash.

I've updated my PenAttention program to v1.2. See PenAttention for a description of the original program. The changes are:

1) Dialog box that allows the user to set the opacity, radius of the highlight, and color of the highlight.

2) An option to highlight the mouse in addition to the pen.

3) Fixed issues causing flickering and strange refresh behavior in some applications (e.g. PowerPoint presentation mode, Sticky Notes, PDF Annotator).

Thanks everyone for your feedback, interest, and support for this program!

To download the installer for this program click the link below:

Update 5/10/08:An updated version of this program is available that fixes the bugs described in this post.

I've been using my Tablet PC to deliver lectures for years, and I love having the ability to record lectures, mark-up PowerPoint, and write by hand using OneNote. However, it's always bothered me that the pen cursor is a tiny little dot. An example is shown below from OneNote: