A Prospective Student User

Hi,
I realize I'm a bit late to the conversation here, but I am a high school student so I thought maybe I could give some input.
The eDGe is in my opinion the ultimate device for students. The problem with high school right now is that many of the textbooks aren't available online or in a pdf format (depending on the publisher your school uses). You'll have to check the store though and some other textbooks sites ( If you would like a list of sites feel free to message me). As for reading books, for example, for a literature class, the eDGe is great because I can annotate, make attachments, look up words, highlight, etc etc. The journal app is great for note taking, although at first it takes some getting used to with the different screen size and the lag ( I don't really notice the lag. I have found that re-calibrating the reader screen really help with the lag however and to hold the stylus as if I"m writing rather than poking the targets).
I fully recommend the eDGe, the main problem is my school wouldn't allow me to connect to the internet with my device, limiting some of my functionality. I would say the only way you will know how much use you would get out of your eDGe as a high school student is by talking to your teachers and technology staff about access you would have to the network and the availability of online books. Teachers would also need to be flexible about posting things on line rather than using all printed sources, which may be difficult it you are the only student with an eDGe and all the other students are still using pencil and paper. The eDGe is a great device for students, but it will be very difficult to use if your school isn't very supportive of allowing students to bring their own computers/ devices to school or are not very up to date with the integration of technology into the classroom.

I know I am super late to this discussion however being a teacher I think I might be able to help. Many of textbooks that are used in public education do have an electronic edition from my experience they are generally pdf's. You can check with your teacher if they have a copy to give you or if there is an online version which happen quite often as well. The only thing to be careful of is the fact that sometimes these electronic versions are teacher editions so they may not want to pass them along. I have all of mine on my edge and use the pdf markup tool to help me plan.

Originally Posted by Chubulor

Well, this can be done with a netbook and a Kindle together costing less than the Edge. Or even cheaper, a netbook and paperback...this is a real stretch as a justification for shelling out $500, especially since the Edge LCD side is significantly weaker than a netbook.

What Kindle are you referring to? Can you really get a netbook and a DX for less than the eDGe? I stumbled across the eDGe when considering a Kindle DX back in February. What impressed me was the fact that firstly the eDGe was available to order and not vaporware like most of the other showings at CES 2010. Also at that time the DX was retailing around the $450 mark. The eDGe was a no brainer considering the markup capabilities. The LCD was pure bonus for me. Yes it's bulky. Yes the processor is a little weak compared to a dedicated netbook, but the target market is spot on. It does what it was intended for...to replace a ~30lb back pack full of books and lever arch files. I just wish I'd had an eDGe for my 3 degrees ! This coupled with the fact I got a white one from eBay shipped to UK for £400 all in (taxes shipping the lot) was icing on the cake

I'm a university student and I use my eDGe all the time, I believe it's fully worth the investment. I receive pdf versions of all my textbooks through disability services at school and so I never carry books with me any more. I take all my notes on the device as well. I set up a vnc server at home and use androidvnc at school so I have a full Linux desktop through the eDGe. I have dropbox installed boy on the server and on my eDGe making file transfer super easy. I am living the dream.

@ drsteve: You also can't highlight or annotate on a Kindle, even a Kindle DX, which is what I really need the tablet to be able to do.

I don't think that anyone doing serious academic reading could be happy with the limitations of 6" Kindle or other small, basic eReader. Again, it's a niche capability (many avid readers, particularly those who read for pleasure, don't need to annotate), but one that is indispensable to many in academia. 11

Originally Posted by drsteve

What Kindle are you referring to? Can you really get a netbook and a DX for less than the eDGe? I stumbled across the eDGe when considering a Kindle DX back in February. What impressed me was the fact that firstly the eDGe was available to order and not vaporware like most of the other showings at CES 2010. Also at that time the DX was retailing around the $450 mark. The eDGe was a no brainer considering the markup capabilities. The LCD was pure bonus for me. Yes it's bulky. Yes the processor is a little weak compared to a dedicated netbook, but the target market is spot on. It does what it was intended for...to replace a ~30lb back pack full of books and lever arch files. I just wish I'd had an eDGe for my 3 degrees ! This coupled with the fact I got a white one from eBay shipped to UK for £400 all in (taxes shipping the lot) was icing on the cake

The subject I was responding to was the ability to read normal books (ie not textbooks, since few high schools will provide electronic versions) which doesn't suffer as much from the small screen. So, I was referring to the small Kindles, which definitely can be purchased along with a netbook for less money.

The Edge's ability to annotate is an extra advantage, but for those who don't need that functionality, I question whether the Edge is right for them.

Originally Posted by Chubulor

The Edge's ability to annotate is an extra advantage, but for those who don't need that functionality, I question whether the Edge is right for them.

A lot of us have said this from day 1 - it's only worth it if you want the handwriting features. But, students really *should* want the handwriting functions, IMHO.

This thread reminded me of an article I read on Science Daily not too long ago: "College Undergrads Study Ineffectively on Computers, Study Finds: Students Transfer Bad Study Habits from Paper to Screen"

Excerpt:

"Teachers need to help students dispel crippling studying myths such as highlighting, outlining and rehearsal, and instead teach them strategies that help them succeed," Kiewra said. (Emphasis mine.)

Highlighting has not been shown to be an effective study technique, so there are advantages to having real annotation options for students. Handwriting has advantages (taking extra notes in the margin, recopying notes), and that's something that right now only the edge and the iRex Illiad (and to a lesser extend, the iPad - people are McGuyvering a stylus and reporting varying degrees of success, and I'm still not sure whether they can write directly on pdfs) seem to offer at this price point, unless you're willing to buy a 4 or 5 year old tablet PC and upgrade RAM/OS and/or HD.

As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, maybe the edge is overkill simply as an electronic (spiral-bound) notebook. Maybe combined with the Android tablet features it's worth it for some people. Having tutored students for almost 2 decades, and spending a couple of years tutoring on a tablet PC as an experiment, I would say there's a real advantage in having your notes in electronic, editable, shareable (though we didn't use a searchable solution) form. Yes, it's maybe a high price to pay to keep notes from getting lost, available in the cloud, organizable either in folders or with tags. But it makes even more sense when you combine with either e-textbooks or self-created pdfs. Given that highlighting really is a pretty weak form of studying, and making your own notes is better, I could envision a situation where a student reads even a physical textbook and takes notes either on the edge or by typing into a document that's converted to pdf. Then, these notes or this pdf is annotated during a lecture, where a student can compare what they thought was important about the reading ahead of time to what the prof discussed in class. None of this requires an edge, but it does turn the organization/storage from a physical problem to a computer task, and some will find advantages in that.

Comparing the edge to a netbook as a student machine, I haven't yet seen any research done on whether taking notes by hand or typing notes is significantly different in terms of brain engagement, memory/recall or academic achievement. Part of me thinks that the more involved physical motion of forming the letters would use different parts of the brain than remembering a letter's position on a keyboard, but I don't know the consequences of the differences. Certainly the netbook makes typing essays easier (or an external keyboard for the edge), but if you have to take notes that involve diagrams, graphics, or math solutions, the netbook isn't a useful note taking device. So, if a student really does want all their notes in electronic form, the edge makes much more sense.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've seen advantages to using electronic, handwritten note taking and organization even before it was common to have e-textbooks, so for me, whether or not the textbook is e-available isn't a make or break factor in how useful the device is. If anything, now that the possibility of getting the texts in e-format is much more likely, it just seems to make the concept even more appealing to a certain kind of student.

Originally Posted by sarah11918

Highlighting has not been shown to be an effective study technique, so there are advantages to having real annotation options for students.

The advantages of the eDGe for school-age kids are even greater than for older students, I think. Many kids are kinetic learners, so the act of writing their notes is what makes them memorable, but in many middle schools, every teacher has a different system for how they like students to keep their notes. Some insist notes be highlighted with specific colors; others want notes categorized by date; still others want them categorized by lesson or book chapter. Kids are graded on their note-taking, so notes that are searchable, flexible, and easily reconstituted are ideal. The added benefit of being able to watch/hear linked videos and other online conent is what would make the science/math/humanities lesson stick (great for kids whose learning is audio-centered). Plus, hopefully they haven't yet been indoctrinated with bad study habits, so they're still open to learning good ones.

This is why I think the eDGe is perfect for kids; I wish their were a kid-friendly version (sturdier, flashier colors/designs, parental controls for web access and chat). I'd buy an eDGe right now for my oldest if odds weren't that she'd lose it or drop it a few times within the first week of ownership.

Addendum: One of my oldest's teachers last year insisted that students use a five-color highlighting system for their MATH notes. Because their notes affect their grade, most of the kids spent more time making sure they'd used the right color highlighter than actually learning the lesson. Ridiculous. But I wonder if somewhere down the line, probably not with this technology, if we can get color "e-ink?"

Well, notes taken in a traditional spiral paper notebook can easily be converted to electronic form using a scanner...a scanner less expensive than an Edge, that can easily be shared by a family (assuming the school doesn't have one for students to use for free). Documents created in this way won't be searchable for text, but neither would those on the Edge.

On the question of typing vs. writing, I suspect that neither involves much brain activity devoted to muscle movement for someone who is experienced at writing/typing. Drawing unfamiliar mathematical notation, diagrams, "idea maps", or graphs probably exercises more of the brain due to these being less automatic, so you've got a point there...though there are some specialized pieces of software that allow you to do these things using just a keyboard (though learning how to use such software might force more of the brain to light up as well).

Research by Dr. Steven Peverly indicates that typing notes can reduce verbal working memory load and allow for deeper processing of information. As a doctoral student, I find the eDGe to be an amazing tool. With the right support from school staff and some ingenuity, I think the OP can make the eDGe work in HS and it will assist them with developing effective study habits and organizational skills.

Originally Posted by drsteve

This coupled with the fact I got a white one from eBay shipped to UK for £400 all in (taxes shipping the lot) was icing on the cake

A little offtopic- do you know you outbid me on Ebay for that white EE ? Ontopic: I even scan my textbooks to have them on my Edge. Not to mention it's extremely useful for reading several academic articles a day.

Scanning a lot of pages torn from a spiral bound notebook will create a lot of headaches wrt jamming the paper sheet feeder. And using a flatbed would be incredibly tortuous. I would suggest using some sort of a wireless bound notebook (although you have to be very careful when tearing the perforations on these). Or, if you you do use torn pages from a spiral bound, be sure to *evenly* cut the edges.

Originally Posted by Chubulor

Well, notes taken in a traditional spiral paper notebook can easily be converted to electronic form using a scanner...

The difference is that scanning doesn't capture the meta data of input strokes, and there are already Windows tablet PC applications that are able to use this data to make handwritten notes searchable. That is, since they can convert to text (and as much as I'm not a huge fan of Windows OS, Windows 7 actually does an exceptional job of converting handwriting to text), the stroke data is stored along with the graphic of the handwritten word, and even if you don't explicitly convert it to text, it can search it as if you did. I can't remember the name of the program I was playing around with years ago (not Agilix Go Binder but a similar "multi-binder imitation" program) and it did this incredibly well, even on Windows XP Tablet edition before the handwriting recognition improved leaps and bounds.

In order to get a scanned pdf to be as useful, you'd need OCR for handwriting (not sure that exists yet) and at the very least a graphic/pdf editing tool if you want anything other than a static representation of the paper notes. Don't these software tools cost a few hundred dollars themselves? Throw in the cost of the scanner and perhaps you can do more for the same price as an edge, but you can't do this one task nearly as well.

Granted, the edge isn't there with the handwriting functionality yet, but it has the potential to be. It captures strokes (because you can use the "stroke erase" tool) so it's just a matter of time until that data can be put to even better use. It might be a *long* time, but that's been one of the most requested features on this forum, so it would make sense that that's a reasonable direction for this device to go. I'm not holding out for immediate solutions, especially given that I know how inferior Apple's handwriting recognition is compared to Microsoft's. If it were easy, Apple's should be comparable and the edge would already have it, so I get that it's not an easy feature to add. But handwriting recognition aside, at least these documents are currently editable in their electronic format. (Of course, paper is editable, too, but it's much more difficult and/or costly to edit once it's been scanned.)

So, while I agree with the value of having an electronic form of notes, not all e-forms are created equal. There is huge potential in creating the document electronically, to take advantage of the stroke input data for sure... and to avoid all those little paper bits from ripping it out of a spiral notebook at the very least!

Originally Posted by walt526

Scanning a lot of pages torn from a spiral bound notebook will create a lot of headaches wrt jamming the paper sheet feeder. And using a flatbed would be incredibly tortuous. I would suggest using some sort of a wireless bound notebook (although you have to be very careful when tearing the perforations on these). Or, if you you do use torn pages from a spiral bound, be sure to *evenly* cut the edges.

If they're doing it every day after school, they won't have to scan that many pages at any individual sitting. Also, back when I was in grade school they had "neatbooks" with a perforation right next to the spiral that made it easy to remove the page without getting the tanglies on one edge...I don't know if they still have those. Obviously they were more expensive, but not *that* much more expensive.

To be sure, the Edge makes this process more convenient by doing it all with one device, as long as you don't mind the tiny stylus and smaller-than-letter-size screen (and breakability and attractiveness to thieves). But for a family with multiple kids in school and not a lot of money to throw around, that convenience might come at too high a price.

Originally Posted by sarah11918

In order to get a scanned pdf to be as useful, you'd need OCR for handwriting (not sure that exists yet) and at the very least a graphic/pdf editing tool if you want anything other than a static representation of the paper notes. Don't these software tools cost a few hundred dollars themselves?

As you note, the Edge doesn't have handwriting recognition capabilities yet...if it did that would be a huge advantage, but for a student purchasing one now I don't think it's reasonable for them to count on the possibility that it might have that capability in the future.

As for graphic editing capabilities...everything the Edge can do in that regard can be done in MS Paint which is pre-installed on every Windows computer in the universe, [[and OpenOffice, also free, can be used to insert these into PDFs if needed]]. In fact, I suggested an Android app that could do just the same things as Paint on one of the "apps the Edge needs" threads on this forum.

Originally Posted by Chubulor

As for graphic editing capabilities...everything the Edge can do in that regard can be done in MS Paint which is pre-installed on every Windows computer in the universe, [[and OpenOffice, also free, can be used to insert these into PDFs if needed]]. In fact, I suggested an Android app that could do just the same things as Paint on one of the "apps the Edge needs" threads on this forum.

MS Paint is horrible for editing. OpenOffice and Preview work alright but it takes significantly more time than using a stylus on the EE. Also, students overlook many of the annotations, notes, etc. inserted using these other methods. They pay attention to the handwritten notes and comments created with the EE.