Using & Teaching Educational Technology
Review: DigiMemo A502
By Terry Freedman
Thu, 7 Sep 2006, 18:03

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What is the DigiMemo, how might it be used, and would I recommend it? Read on to find out -- and to learn how to be entered into a prize draw to win one.


The DigiMemo is a pretty clever device that aims to give you the best of both worlds: the convenience of taking notes in a form that can be word-processed and repurposed quite easily, without the inconvenience of lugging a laptop around.

It's basically an electronic clipboard on which you clip a pad of ordinary notepaper, on which you make notes with a special pen. The electronic version of these notes may be stored on the device's internal memory or, as I preferred, a CompactFlash card. You then transfer the file to your computer, where you can run the handwriting recognition software to turn it into digital text.

The DigiMemo is very light and very convenient. It's easy to carry around, and the nice thing is that you can loaf about on the settee making notes much more easily than you could using a keyboard.

You have to train the software to recognise your handwriting, and you have to partially train yourself in certain respects to make sure that your writing can be interpreted correctly. I have to say that I found this process somewhat time-consuming -- which I wouldn't have minded had it made the slightest difference to the results. The problem is that I tend to write both illegibly and at an angle, and this seemed to be a combination that rendered the software unable to decipher more than about 75% of my scribble. Mind you, that's not exactly unimpressive..

Another concern I had was losing the pen -- without it, the device is merely an over-priced clipboard, so you would need to have a spare I think.

Also, you have to be assiduous in keeping the number of the paper pages in line with the numbers on the digital pages. If not then you end up with one page being superimposed on another, and therefore being completely impervious to the text recognition software.

So, would I recommend it? Perhaps surprisingly, in the light of some of the issues I've just raised, the answer is "yes". The amount of time I needed to spend with a spell-checker afterwards was little more than I have to anyway, because I tend to type at the speed of light and worry about corrections later. It is a device that would be useful for students out on a field trip or conducting interviews with members of the public, and would also appeal to those who find their creative juices encouraged by writing and stifled by typing. I see this device as an addition to a school's bank of resources rather than a replacement for any of them.

Selwyn, a company that supplies the DigiMemo in the UK, has kindly given UK subscribers to Computers in Classrooms and Leading & Managing Educational Technology a special offer price of £129.99, until the end of the year.  To take advantage of this offer call  01732 765 100 and quote  'ICTED OFFER'

Selwyn has also kindly agreed to provide a DigiMemo and software for a prize draw. (Again, only UK subscribers to Computers in Classrooms and Leading & Managing Educational Technology are eligible to be entered.) The rules and details of the draw may be found here:

http://www.terry-freedman.org.uk/db/polls/

My thanks to Anna Clements, www.selwyn.co.uk, for providing me with an evaluation model of the hardware and software for 30 days.

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© Terry Freedman Thu, 7 Sep 2006