I love all things tech and would like to share with you some of my favorite tech toys in hopes these tools will make your lives much easier. The first tool I would like to share with you is called the Echopen from Livescribe. At work I chair several committees and find myself trying to facilitate these meetings while taking notes and capturing the essence of what is being said. This can be a major challenge, not to mention very tedious when later typing my notes and then distributing the notes to committee members as an email attachment.

The Echopen has made my life so much easier, because it allows me to take hand written notes while also capturing audio of what is being said. After taking notes I dock my Echopen to my laptop or desktop and upload my notes and the audio. I absolutely love the Echo! The Echopen also has an app that is purchased separately and can transfer handwritten notes directly to text! I am not a quick typist so this app would be a terrific time saver for me. I have the 4 GB Echopen which has more than enough storage space for me, the cost was around $160 at Bestbuy. Take a look at the YouTube video below.

The New Echo smartpen from Livescribe

- 1 min - Jul 15, 2010 - Uploaded by nevermissaword
Introducing the New Echo smartpen from Livescribe. Find what you need with a tap.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Kh4Tpc9jfk

I'd also like to tell you about Dragon software, Dragon is a speech to text software that again cuts down on time for me as I am not a fast typist. Dragon for desktop/laptop requires me to speak using a headset and what I say automatically appears of my computer screen as text. Love it! I recently downloaded Dragon Dictation to my iPhone 4 and I can just speak and Dragon creates text messages, emails, and posts to facebook and twitter.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking Standard - PC - DVD-ROM ( mini-box ) - English
$30 - 17 stores

Dictate - Mac
$154 - 14 stores

Nuance 8022328 Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred V10.0
$175 - 4 stores

Dragon Dictation for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes ...Learn more, read reviews, and download Dragon Dictation by Nuance Communications on the iTunes App Store.itunes.apple.com/us/app/dragon-dictation/id341446764?mt...

As a college administrator I am always exploring ways to engage students in the classroom, online, and through campus life. Last year I purchased a Flip Slide HD camera and have used it to help enhance the college experience for our students. Rather than sending boring text emails, I encourage our staff to create video messages to communicate information to students via cell phones and emails. I paid $249 for my HD Flip on Amazon.com. Don't get me wrong, I'm not all work and no play. I have taken my Flip on many vacations, used it to shoot a family wedding and the graduation ceremony of my niece.

http://www.theflip.com/en-us/

SlideHD captures up to 4 hours of HD video and features a 3" widescreen for instant watching, allowing you to take your favorite videos with you anywhere you go. Pre-loaded FlipShare™ software makes it easy to organize, edit and share your videos.

The final tech toy I will share with you in this blog is the PanDigital scanner. If you have need of a scanner to record and store important documents, old pictures, and almost anything else, the PanDigital scanner may be just the tech toy for you. It's compact and does a good job scanning docs. The scanner can be purchased on Amazon, HSN.com, and other electronics retailers.