Today, I was given the opportunity to visit Flint Hill School in Fairfax County, Virginia. They are a 1:1 school, meaning that all students have their own personal computing device to use. The elementary school kids have iPads and the middle and high school kids have MacBook Airs. And some of those middle and high schoolers have been using Pear Note to take notes in class.

Their first priority has been using Pear Note to help students who have trouble taking good notes in class. I sat down with one eighth grade girl who showed me how she used Pear Note to take notes one of her classes. This particular teacher talks too fast for her to take notes and listen. So, she takes a 3 step approach:

1. Record the audio in Pear Note while she just listens to the teacher.
2. Play back the audio in Pear Note and add some text notes it.
3. Study her notes by reading the text and listening to the key audio portions.

It was great to see folks at such a young age making use of Pear Note. I talk to many of you who are college students or in the workforce, but I rarely get to talk to kids that are using Pear Note as well. If you have other stories of kids in K-12 schools using Pear Note, please send them my way.

I’ll probably post more about my trip to Flint Hill in the coming weeks, but I wanted to go ahead and share this little bit. I learned a lot from them and am very impressed with how forward thinking they are about education. If any of you out there are educators and are looking for role models blazing new trails in education, you should really check out what’s going on at Flint Hill.

I was interviewed on the TeacherCast podcast about Pear Note’s use in the classroom. Thanks very much to Jeff for the talk and for spreading the word about helpful technologies in education. Check it out at their site or in iTunes.

On this week’s Mac Power Users podcast, they interviewed comedian, writer, actor, and director David Wain. You may know of him from The State, MADtv, Role Models, Children’s Hospital, or his upcoming movie starring Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd, Wanderlust. In the podcast, David describes his workflow for making a movie and the tools he uses along the way. One of those tools is Pear Note.

In the interview, he talks about using Pear Note for notes sessions on readings of the script as well as screenings with producers and studio personnel. He also talks about using Pear Note to keep track of what parts get laughs during early screenings. The whole interview is great (Pear Note’s part happens just after the 22 minute mark).

I love hearing different ways Pear Note is used, and I’m glad to hear it’s so helpful in movie making. I have to say, when I set out to make a note-taking tool, I was picturing classrooms and conference rooms. I never would have dreamed it would be used to help make a major motion picture.