1. The Smartest Pen You'll Ever Use: The Livescribe smartpen is essentially a ballpoint pen with a tiny computer, microphone and digital audio recorder. The pen records what you write on its special paper and synchronizes those notes with any audio it has recorded. To hear what a professor said when you jotted down a particular note, all you have to do is tap the note with your pen to listen to that section of the lecture again.

2. The Ultimate Alarm Clock: The Flying Alarm Clock will get you up and up on time -- snooze button not included. When the alarm goes off the propeller-like top charges up and flies into the air. The only way to turn off the alarm is to jump out of bed, find the flying top and return it back to the clock base.

3. The Hottest Ereader: School textbooks don't come cheap. The national average a student spent for books and supplies at a four-year public college in 2010-11 was $1,137. A Kindle, Amazon's wireless reading device, is a smart and practical purchase for just $139. The Amazon Kindle comes with a free built-in 3G connection that allows you to download thousands of books from Amazon.com. Kindles are used just like any regular textbook in that students can make bookmarks, highlight and make notes on text.

4. A Smorgasbord of Apps for That New Tablet: Although smaller than bulky laptops, tablets still offer just as many applications and features. For example, the FlashCards Plus app lets you do away with stacks of paper index cards. With this app you can quiz yourself by creating fill-in the blank, matching, multiple choice and true/false questions on digital flash cards.

• The Study Buddy app keeps track of your actual study and break time to help you manage your time and study sessions. And the Essay Planner app is great for student procrastinators. It creates your own "plan of attack" based on an interactive self-assessment to help quickly organize your paper when crunched for time.

5. The Ultimate Backpack: The Ultimate Laptop Backpack -- which has a built-in siren and strobe light -- provides students with an extra level of mobile personal security. In seconds, you can activate two high decibel sirens and a high intensity strobe light to attract immediate attention to a dangerous or harmful situation.