Having Students Write With the Smart Slate

I'm interested in hearing other people's thoughts on having the students write responses with the Smart Slate.  In theory, it seems like a great way to get the kids more involved in the lesson, but whenever I try it, it seems like it takes the students so long to write using the stylus, and they end up with either horrible penmanship that can't be read, or they make multiple mistakes and erasures so it ends up taking forever for them to finish.  In the meantime, the rest of the class has lost focus.  I've been trying to use it in math class so that the students can demonstrate how to solve problems.  I know if the students could just have more time to practice, they'd get better eventually (I got much better after my first several tries) but I can't see how to schedule sufficient time for each student to practice with the Slate.  I realize there are many other ways that the student can be involved in the use of the Slate that do not involve handwriting, but I was just wondering how is everyone else handling student use of the Smart Slate.

Simple, But Effective

I used the Smart Slate for a very simple task this past week, but I felt that it offered a very effective way to make an abstract concept more concrete for my math students.  We were practicing a skill that our math book refers to as "multiplication patterns"--multiplying numbers with one non-zero digit, followed by one or more zeroes.  I have always taught the students to "ignore" the zeroes, multiply the non-zero digits, count the total number of zeroes, and them tack them on to the end of the answer.  When "ignoring" the zeroes in the past, I usually wrote the problems on the regular whiteboard and used a piece of paper to cover up the zeroes on the ends of the numbers.  With the Smart Slate, I used a blue marker to write the numbers, then chose a fat yellow highlighter to color over the zeroes.  That way, we could ignore them, but still see them in the problem.  Again, I felt it was a very effective way to demonstrate the concept that I wanted the students to learn.