I have a confession, while I strive for a paperless classroom, I love writing in notebooks. Actually, it is more than love. In many ways I need to write in notebooks. I think differently when I write by hand.
The fact that the pen is mightier than the keyboard in my creative process is a double edge sword. My handwriting is bad. Throughout my education most of the feedback I got from teachers grades 1-10 was about how bad my handwriting was. Handwriting worksheets have left their scars on my psyche. I rushed into the world of screens and keyboards that fit in my pocket with open arms, only to find empty betrayal. My brain needs the clumsy, messy, hard to read process of ink on paper.
Thus my love affair with the smart pen. The idea of a pen that holds all the writing I have done, and makes it searchable is like having an extension added to my brain.
When I saw the Indegogo campaign for the Equil2 Smartpen I knew I had to see what this writing revolution was all about, and I was not disappointed.
How it works
The Equil2 pen works on ANY notebook. The receiver unit clips to the top of the page and uses a combination of infrared and ultrasound to map your writing into the aopp on the connected device. The unit will also store writing you have done while not connected to a device. I was really impressed with the fidelity of the image and the quality of the connection. If you are in a very noisy coffee house, the blenders and cappuccino steamers will occasionally cause a bit of interference.
What is in the box
When you get an Equil 2 smartpen you get a charging station/ case with a wrap around cover. It is small and fits nicely any small bag, tote, or purse. It is a bit too bulky for a pocket. The case hold the pen and the receiver unit. The receiver is about the size of an old school pink eraser and the pen is a standard size pen. For those of us who have used oversize smartpens, this is a relief because you can write with the equil2 for extended amounts of time without fatigue. The charging station uses a standard micro USB charger, making it easy to keep charged. The batter life on the receiver and the pen is great, in my month of testing I charged the pen every 2-3 days and never ran out of battery.
Pen + tablet = live scrapbooking
Smartpens are an important part of my note taking toolkit because I go to some meetings that have a “no screens” rule. In fact there are leaders I work with who believe that being on your device is a sign of disengagement. In an age of 1:1 programs where we expect kids to learn using devices I am hopeful this will trickle up to the leadership soon, but until then I need a way to capture my learning and thinking that is screen free, thus the pen.
When I need to work screen free the equil 2 save the pages I write to be imported later. When I can work connected to the device, the functionality of the pen sky rockets. The equil Note app allows me to add pictures directly into the page I am writing, in full graphic layout mode! (insert picture) I can even drop a picture onto the page, change the ink color, and annotate directly on the picture. Sitting through a presentation, I can use my android tablet to snap pictures of the slide and drop them into the notes I am taking, like these notes I captured at the Wonder Workshop educator’s day. 
Once I started working with the photo import feature I went a little wild exploring digital scrapbooking.
When I dialed it back, I started thinking about using this for text annotation. One of the pen modes you can select is highlighter mode. So I photographed my text and gave it a shot.
But wait there is more! My use of the pen has focused on how it works with the notes app and there is a whole other side to this tool. The Sketch app allows the user to create awesome artworks using a pen and paper just as if they were using a stylus and a tablet.
The team behind the Equil2 have developed a tool that allows users to create digital content with a pen on any piece of paper they choose. IN the short time I have used it my writing productivity and quality have both increased. I connected it to my evernote account, so my work is fully searchable. This is a game changer for anyone who likes to write by hand, but wants their work accessible from any device.
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