Today’s New York Times has a nice review of the Fly Pentop Computer, which has just become available.

The Fly Pentop is marketed as an educational product for children aged 8 to 13. It combines a processor with some software and an optical scanner into the shape of a pen. The scanner keeps track of what is written and responds via audio feedback according to software that is activated. Draw, for example, a calculator on paper and Fly narrates the digits that are (virtually) pressed and responds with the answer. And, after activating the Notepad feature, Fly reads back whatever words have been written on the paper. The user can draw a piano keyboard and then proceed to play it.

Factor in interchangeable software, some dictionaries, games, and interactive textbooks and downloadable tests and pretty soon we’re talking low-cost metacognitive skills enhancement.

The Pen Gets a Whole Lot Mightier - NYT, November 17, 2005

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 17th, 2005 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Kids. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.