Pencast: Online publication of a handwritten manuscript, usually along with the corresponding audio file. Also a verb: to publish a pen-written text with audio.
Pencast was formed through imitation of podcast, coined in 2004 to mean “online publication of a digital media file”; the word appropriated the pod of iPod even though it isn’t necessary to use an iPod or any other digital media player to create a podcast. (Podcast and webcast are essentially the same thing, although podcast is now the more popular term.) The original –cast compound, broadcast, was first seen in print in 1767, when it referred to the spreading of seed. It became associated with radio in the early 1920s; simulcast (to broadcast simultaneously on radio and television) first appeared in 1948. (Source: Etymology Online.)
A blogger known as Mandarine claims to have coined pencasting in an April 2007 comment on Emily’s Blog in which he lamented the declining use of fountain pens:
Maybe I will post scanned manuscript articles (halfway between blogging and podcasting, let's call it pencasting) to use ink again.
The following year, an Oakland company, Livescribe, changed the implications of pencasting when it introduced the Pulse smartpen, which incorporates a camera and an audio recorder. The pen could record, say, a classroom lecture, and link it to notes taken on special paper. The pen sold well, at about $130 each, and this year Livescribe began selling a more advanced model, the Echo, for about $170.
Smartpen recordings are useful for the notetaker’s personal use, of course, but they can also be used for sharing information online: in other words, for pencasting.
Here’s how Clive Thompson explained it in “The Pen That Never Forgets,” an article about Livescribe’s classroom uses that appeared in the September 19, 2010, New York Times magazine:
Having a pen that listens, the students told me, has changed the class in curious ways. Some found the pens make class less stressful; because they don’t need to worry about missing something, they feel freer to listen to what [seventh-grade math teacher Brian] Licata says. When they do take notes, the pen alters their writing style: instead of verbatim snippets of Licata’s instructions, they can write “key words” — essentially little handwritten tags that let them quickly locate a crucial moment in the audio stream. Licata himself uses a Livescribe pen to provide the students with extra lessons. Sitting at home, he’ll draw out a complicated math problem while describing out loud how to solve it. Then he’ll upload the result to a class Web site. There his students will see Licata’s handwriting slowly fill the page while hearing his voice explaining what’s going on. If students have trouble remembering how to tackle that type of problem, these little videos — “pencasts” — are online 24 hours a day. All the students I spoke to said they watch them.
Follow the “little videos” link to see some of Mr. Licata’s pencasts. You can also view (and hear) pencasts on the Livescribe website.
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