Smart Board / Pages / AppleWorks

sybariticsybaritic
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
Rarely do I find myself impressed by educational applications for Windows XP, but yesterday I went to an education seminar at a well-known private secondary school and watched as several impressive teachers displayed the various aspects of Smart Notepad for Windows. I wonder if anyone is aware of a comparable product for the Mac. Furthermore, I'd love to see Smart functionality built into the next iteration of AppleWorks or Pages. Is such software likely to come out of Cupertino anytime soon?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Define 'Smart'. ie, what makes it special?



    Edit: After googling for 'smart notepad' with combinations of Windows and Microsoft, the only thing I could find that might match is the Smart Tags of Office (which can be used in Notepad). System 9 had Apple Data Detectors, which did the same sort of thing, but they weren't carried over into OS X. The approach didn't map well to the new underpinnings, and now that they have a direction for metadata handling in Spotlight and related technologies, I suspect we'll see this pop up again in a form that can be used not just in Apple apps, but in any app, from any developer.



    Or do you have something else in mind when you say 'Smart'?
  • Reply 2 of 3
    jambojambo Posts: 3,036member
    SMART Notebook is software which comes with SMART Boards (interactive whiteboards) made by SMART Technologies, it can be freely downloaded from www.smarttech.com.



    Version 8 of the software is available for Mac OS X and provides almost identical functionality to that of version 8 for Windows. Version 9 has been released but is Windows only at the moment.



    Where Windows and Mac versions previously differed was with the SMART Aware feature. Windows applications could be made SMART Aware allowing the user to, for example, hand write on top of Microsoft Word and the software would convert the handwritten text to typed text and move it into Word. With the advent of Ink in Mac OS X this functionality is now available in any Mac OS X application including AppleWorks and Pages.
  • Reply 3 of 3
    sybariticsybaritic Posts: 340member
    Bravo. I should have done my homework.



    The presenters yesterday were able to do some interesting stuff -- from the predictable to the fabulous: handwriting recognition (i.e. translation into editable text), immediate OCR conversion from scans, various forms of image capture and cataloging (hardly a Windows strength), and real time recording and playback of a teacher's smart board notes. For students who are absent, the last feature has evidently been a boon. Glad to hear that Apple is "on line," as it were, with these features.
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