Magic Wand Scanner

Check out this scanner.  It is the Magic Wand Portable Scanner, from VuPoint.  It's a AA battery-powered wand scanner that stores the image on a mini-SD card.  Really, this scanner takes about 5 minutes to setup and with some practice allows you to digitize just about anything you can hold flat.  The wand is about 9 inches wide so it has the ability to scan a sheet of paper, making it easy to scan a student's work without having a flatbed scanner in the room.

Once the scan is complete (and you can store many scans on the same card without having to unload), you hook the scanner up to your computer.  It uses a standard USB cable, which is included.  Once plugged into my mac, iPhoto opened and the images were ready for uploading.  No software to install.  Easy!!!  We are hoping that this wand will make documenting student work a little more accessible and convenient.

We also hope that it will help organize paperwork around the house.  My wife can use it while traveling to organize receipts, so that will save us some follow-up work when she returns home.  Also, it will allow us to throw away papers that we can scan and keep digitally.  We'll let you know in a few months just how helpful this device is.