EduTechie.com

28 Feb, 2008

QipIt – Mobile Phone Capture

Posted by: Jeff VanDrimmelen In: Mobile| Student Tools| Teacher Tools

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So couple of days ago I posted about a new Google Chat client that I have embedded on my blog.  First off, it has been great fun to interact with all sorts of people that I normally wouldn’t get the chance to chat with!  A lot of you just entered to see if worked, but never said anything.  But I did have some good conversations. 

This morning I received a chat invitation from a Philippe Dewost, a young guy from France, who was reading a popular post from about a year ago: “8 Ways to use Camera Phones in Education.“  Philippe is a the guy behind, or at least a part of a cool program called Qipit that I thought might be of use to some of you out there. 

Functionality

Basically it allows students/teachers to take a pictures of notes/whiteboards/etc. and email them to a service that converts them over to PDF.  It actually works pretty good.  It takes out all the ugly from the picture and makes a pretty good copy of what ever you are seeing (but it does have to be large). 

Cons

  • Multiple pages is somewhat hard.  You can do it by attaching multiple pictures to an e-mail, but that is difficult on a phone.  From what I can see there is no way to edit it once it has been sent and combine pictures together.
  • UPDATE: Qipit does offer a “merge” feature that allows to reorder your pages and combine them in a single PDF. For multiple uploads we also offer an HTTP uploader (10 pages at a time, including pre scanning page rotate) so you can unload your cell phone using bluetooth and upload at once to Qipit
  • 100 page limit… okay, this really probably isn’t an issue for most people, but there is a limit.
    • UPDATE: The 100 page limit is an online storage limit.  You always receive your qipit copies by e-mail.
  • Still new… there might be others…

    • Uses

    The uses in education are obvious.  Students can scan in hand written notes and share them easily with friends (and save paper!).  Teacher’s can scan in notes from class on a board they want to remember… or even assignments. 

    What other uses can you think of?  There is a Facebook group devoted Qipit too…

    1 Response to "QipIt – Mobile Phone Capture"

    1 | Conrad Hametner

    February 28th, 2008 at 6:53 pm

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    Thanks for the post about qipit (pronounced: kwip-it)! Qipit is indeed a powerful tool for teachers and students. In addition to copying whiteboard notes (less time writing, more time listening) and making it really easy to share class notes (2 or 3 sets of notes are better than one). Qipit can be used as a tool for research in the library (copying reference materials).

    Another great feature is the ability to publish and share over the Internet with a permanent URL. For instance, a math or chemistry teacher can publish the whiteboards of all the formulas from the day’s lesson. This will only take a few clicks using nothing more than a digital camera and a computer (or just a higher quality camera phone). The results can be seen online and downloaded as a PDF. Here is an example of a published whiteboard of a chemistry formula.

    Qipit’s core technology turns a picture (JPEG) into a highly legible ink-on-white printable document. Qipit removes glare, shadows, distortion, etc. and even crops the images, then they are converted into a PDF as a means for storage and sharing. Have you ever tried to print a picture of a document?

    Regarding merging multiple pages (PDFs), this is not a problem. Here is a blog post that explains how to combine your qipits in a snap.

    In addition to being useful for educators and students, it is also within budget, free! Thanks again for the post. We would love to hear what teachers and students have to say about qipit.

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    About Me

    Jeff - I am an Instructional Technologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I love Google, Mac's, and Web Technologies that help us better reach, teach, connect, and prepare students to solve the world's greatest problems.


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