Senior Vice President, Chief People Officer & Member of Executive Board, AVNET INC
Ken Arnold demonstrates the DigiMemo
SDSU Engineering instructor Ken Arnold demonstrates the DigiMemo (http://www.digimemo.com) digital writing and drawing pad.
About Ken Arnold
In 2014, Ken Arnold, then an SDSU Engineering instructor, demonstrated the DigiMemo digital writing pad. He described using the device to illustrate concepts during lectures, particularly for programming classes, noting that it allowed him to write on paper while the input appeared on screen. Arnold stated that he preferred the DigiMemo because its aspect ratio matched the screen and it used a pen with an ink cartridge, which he said provided a backup if technology failed. He mentioned that he often used a wireless mouse alongside the tablet, switching between tools as needed. Arnold explained that he used the DigiMemo in both live and online courses, recording his annotations and posting them on Blackboard for students to review. He described the device as working on PC, Mac, and Linux via USB, and said it gave him the ability to mark up prepared slides in a way similar to a whiteboard. He noted that students in live classes responded positively to the recordings, particularly for difficult concepts.
Transcript (3 segments)
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Ken Arnold0:00
Particularly when I'm doing concepts that have high cognitive friction, as I'm going through it I'm doing an explanation, I can illustrate it. That's also the tool that I use for writing, with which I'm terrible with the regular digitizers because I have to write in one place and look on the screen to see what I'm doing. But with this, there's two or three versions of this. This is the one I ended up with. I tried a couple of others, and the reason I ended up with this one is because when you are writing on it, it's the same aspect ratio as the screen, and it comes with a USB cable and a pen which is like a digitizing tablet pen except it actually has an ink cartridge in it. So when I'm writing, I can be looking at this paper as I'm writing, and there's a couple of advantages to that. One is I'm looking at the paper and it's much easier for me to write than when I'm trying to look at a screen and write with a digitizer, and then I go off the edge of the digitizer and I didn't notice that can be very jarring when I'm in the middle of trying to explain something. So I can write on this. It has a secondary advantage, which is again I like things that are reliable and can't fail. One of the things I've discovered is paper 1.0, pen 1.0, and eyeball 1.0 rarely crash, require updates, or have other nasty characteristics. So that's one of the backups: I've got the paper so even if the technology fails completely, I can still write on the paper, I can use that later or whatever. That's just much more valuable. And it works on PC, it works on my Macintosh, and it also works on a Linux machine. It's pretty much just a USB cable connection to my computer, and it works pretty much the same as a mouse. In fact, most of the time I also have my wireless mouse plugged in because some things I find are much easier with a mouse, so I usually have both plugged in at the same time. That allows me to point and click with the mouse when it's easier and use my digitizing tablet when that's easier.
Typically the way I would use this in class is, maybe as in this case I've got some code for a programming class which I was doing this morning, and I want to mark it up. I can simply pick, in this case it's just Paint, but I can pick whatever tool I want. Some people prefer OneNote, which is okay too if you use Windows, but whatever tool you use, you want to make sure that you're comfortable with it and that you use it a bit. So in this case, I can do things like, I've got this variable called counter, and I can write that on there and I can put a little box, and then I can go through and say okay, counter starts at zero but then it changes to one, and I can be drawing pictures and circles and arrows and things pointing out where we are. This case it's a programming class and I want to go through with the students and explain what it is we're doing. So if I've got some material that's already on the screen, that kind of prompts me and gives me something to start with. In this case it's a program, a very simple program, and then I can also draw things freehand, so I can do my little block diagrams and whatnot over on the side. This gives me basically the same ability as if I'm writing on the whiteboard, but I have the advantage that I can have prepared material already on the slide or whatever. This works with PowerPoint, it works with pretty much anything that can use a mouse from what I can tell. If the software will allow you to mark things up with a mouse, then you can mark it up with this, and obviously much easier to handwrite than it is to try and write with a mouse, which is horrible. So that allows me to emphasize things, I can circle detail.
When I'm actually trying to write something, I can write directly on the paper and I don't have to worry about is my pen in the right place. I'm one of those people that I can sort of write with a regular digitizing pad where my hand is writing over here and my eyes are pointed at the screen, but frankly I'm just not that coordinated. I have a hard enough time keeping my thumb out of my eye. So the general concept is trying to take what I do normally, which is write on a whiteboard or write on a piece of paper when I'm talking to somebody, and translate it into the classroom environment. This works. I use this all the time now in my live class, even though I really started with it for the online courses. I found that the students in the live classes really like it. So I'll take these recordings, I'll post them on Blackboard, and then use them as an example, and then the students can rewind me, especially with those difficult concepts.