In the first of an occasional series, we'll be looking at some new products that you members of the learning technologies group might be interested in. First up: Papershow.

I was initially quite skeptical of this product, but when we finally got it working it certainly didn't disappoint. It took a few goes to sort out synchronising the pen with the bluetooth dongle that carries all the software and drivers, but once you've done it once, you barely need to think about it again. Also, all the data you generate is stored on the bluetooth dongle so mobility was clearly a key driver at the design stage.

Ostensibly a similar looking piece of kit to the Wacom tablet beloved of the graphic designer/illustrator, papershow makes it possible to liven up your presentations in many different ways. You can annotate existing PowerPoint presentations, you can incorporate slides that you've drawn from scratch into presentations, and you can save a presentation you've drawn to pdf or PowerPoint and email it straight to people who can't attend the presentation in person. The opportunities for hassle-free digital archiving here are tremendous, and the fact that the presentations generated are all written in someone's handwriting (presumably legible - unlike mine), is one of the key elements to papershow's potential success; the personalisation of the old PowerPoint presentation. This gives the software a blended approach to presentations, and is poised to ride the wave of the animation zeitgeist that is currently sweeping the presentation world.

The inspirational statements of 'captivate your audience', 'energise your meetings', 'create surprise' and 'animate your slideshow' actually feel like they have substance, the key one being 'energise your meetings', which this will undoubtedly do. And it's not just a world of blue monochrome; you can draw in a variety of colours, pen thicknesses, it has a function to draw perfect squares or circles, arrows, the possibilities are myriad. The only downside is that it doesn't work with Windows 7, but this is a fix that I imagine the makers are working on right now. Verdict: 8/10

To view the video from last year's gadget show live, see beneath.

In the New Year, we'll be giving members the chance to win their very own copy of Papershow. Keep checking back in the group for more details...