Penultimate for iPad

I am at the League for Innovation in the Community College conference this week - Innovations 2011 in San Diego. I've attended some good sessions already and am looking forward to a couple of more today on either side of my own session, "Social Media in the Classroom: Friend or Foe?" For a geek like me, this is a great conference to pick up tools and ideas that I'll experiment with in my own classes. Yesterday, one of the tools that I learned about is Penultimate for iPad. We just purchased a few iPads to incorporate into our Business Administrative Systems classes, so I'm still a newbie and figuring out practical applications. There are plenty of recreational apps, which makes it very addicting, but I’d really like to find more business and practical applications. One thing I’ve wanted to be able to do is to write on the iPad like a true tablet. I’ve found that I can actually take notes quicker on my iPhone because the size is more manageable. Since spring last year, I’ve converted to taking notes on the iPhone at conferences whenever possible and enjoy being more and more paperless. Back to the iPad, the app I learned about yesterday is call Penultimate. It is a note taking app that does allow the user to “write” directly on the surface. It looks like it is easier to do with a stylus, but this makes it seem more practical for students to use in classes to take notes instead of the stacks of paper notebooks – and it is less cumbersome than a full-size laptop.


Here are a couple of tutorials demonstrating Penultimate. The reviews state that the price is $2.99, but when I checked the apps store last night, it looks like it is now $1.99. That's inexpensive enough to give it a whirl.