LD Resources

© 1997 Richard Wanderman

Now that I’ve been using an AlphaSmart for a few years and have met hundreds of other users both in and out of the education world, I’m amazed at how limited people’s imaginations are about using this most revolutionary tool.

Yes, students being able to do electronic composition instead of writing in a spiral notebook and transcribing onto a computer at school is fantastic, and certainly enough, but there’s so much more that can be done with an AlphaSmart keyboard.

Below are some ideas for using AlphaSmarts that you might not have thought of. Most of them are things that YOU can do, not your students. Oh, you don’t use one yourself?

Use the AlphaSmart Yourself
In June, at NECC, at the AlphaSmart focus group meeting, I was amazed at how few people in the group actually seemed to have experience using the AlphaSmart to do their own work. All of them had experience using it in a classroom, but few seemed to take one home themselves or use it for their paperwork at school.

So, I recommend that those of you who like this tool actually try using it yourselves. Most of the rest of these ideas come from that idea.

Take Notes at Meetings
This seems obvious but I’m amazed at how many people fire up PowerBooks and ThinkPads at meetings for simple note-taking chores. Laptop computers are battery hogs and/or need AC support, take longer go start up, have noisier keyboards, and have more software resources than are needed for simple note-taking chores. I take my AlphaSmart to every meeting I attend where I plan to take notes.

Tip: Put notes you are bringing to the meeting in F1 (file 1) and take notes in F2 (file 2). You can switch back and forth easily by hitting the F1 or F2 keys.

Collect Names and Addresses
Pass your AlphaSmart around a room to collect names and addresses instead of having people fill out a form that will eventually have to be transcribed into a computer. This way you’ve got the information in text form from the start and can eliminate a time-consuming step. Obviously, you can collect ANY kind of information this way.

Make AlphaSmarts Available for Checkout at Libraries
The library connection seems obvious to me but I have a hard time convincing librarian friends of mine to try this. Make 10 or more AlphaSmarts available at the circulation desk for in-house checkout. Students and other people doing research can take them into the stacks or sit down at tables with them and do their work. Then, they can take them to the library’s computer area and upload into a text file and save it on disk to take home.

Or, have the AlphaSmarts available for checkout to take home and eliminate the middle step, allowing people to take the information directly home to their computers.

Use Alphasmarts on Airplanes Instead of Battery-hog Powerbooks and Thinkpads
Face it, when you walk down the isle on many flights and see people using laptop computers (mostly non-Macs I might say), at least half the time they’re playing solitaire. Okay, you can’t play solitaire on an AlphaSmart, but you can do your writing. So, carry both: a laptop for playing solitaire and an AlphaSmart for doing the real work.

Seriously, I never take my PowerBook out on planes, preferring to write with my AlphaSmart. It’s smaller and when I’m sitting in coach (most of the time until I become rich or famous) it affords me more room to move. The batteries last long enough so I never think about them running out. I can use it for a while, then stow it at my feet (I’d never put my PowerBook down there), and it will definitely become a conversation piece with the computer-using business person sitting next to you who:

* makes fun of it as a toy
* makes fun of it as a toy but is really envious but afraid to show it
* is secure enough to show interest and asks you where you got it
* won’t leave you alone to do your work because he/she has to have one immediately!

Take Notes at the Beach
Okay, summer is over (boo!) but for those of you who live south of say DC, you still have a bit of beach time left (after school). Take your AlphaSmart to the beach and catch some rays while you dump your thoughts about the crappy novel you’re reading because you spent a fortune on the hardcover edition you HAD to have.

Move Your Writing Environment to a Warmer or More Scenic Place in the House
This will sound like I live in the “country.” Well, I do. And, we heat our house with wood. In the morning, before the wood stove has generated enough heat to warm the chilly upstairs part of our house where the office is, and while I’m sipping coffee, stoking the fire, and watching the Weather Channel seeing if I’ll be able to fly to place x to make a living, I almost always have my AlphaSmart with me making notes about what I’m going to be doing upstairs when my office defrosts.

Record Brainstorms More Spontaneously
I always get my best ideas when I’m as far away from a way to record them as humanly possible. I think this must be a law of physics.

Laying in bed at night or in the morning: easy to have an AlphaSmart sitting by the bed, ready for action. Be careful what kind of action you interrupt.

In the shower: you’re on your own here, maybe Ketan and Joe will make a yellow, underwater AlphaSmart someday.

But anywhere I get a brainstorm I can sit and record it. Being able to work away from AC is important and really does affect your work style.

If I want to do some writing and sit near our stove, or sit near the window facing the pond, or, sit near the window where the bird feeders are so I can think about what it is I want to write but also track the comings and goings of our goldfinch population, the AlphaSmart is the tool that allows me to do that. And I can do it without much thought: just pick up the AlphaSmart and move to the new location and get to work.

Lately, I’ve been spending time outside cutting firewood. Cutting trees down is a dirty, noisy business and I love doing it (don’t cringe, environmentalists, we’re not clear-cutting, just thinning a lot of forest around our place). Invariably, right in the middle of this process when I’m totally dirty, sweaty, in my kevlar chaps, gloves, and visored helmet, I’ll have a brainstorm. Sitting on a log (out of the way of falling trees) is my trusty AlphaSmart. I can take the gloves off, fire it up, dump a few thoughts in, and get back to work.

My wife would kill me if I ran into the house with mud on my shoes and wood chips flying off my back just to write a few notes that came to me outside. Actually, she already has yelled at me many times for this so she loves the AlphaSmart too because it keeps our house clean.