[Arizona-students] FYI Fw: New Smartpen And Paper To Help TeachBlind College Students

[Allison Hilliker]

Just thought some of you may find this interesting.

Allison
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>> Science Daily
>> Monday, December 03, 2007
>>
>> New Smartpen And Paper To Help Teach Blind College Students
>>
>> ScienceDaily (Dec. 3, 2007) - Subjects like physics, calculus and biology
>> are challenging for most students, but imagine tackling these topics
>> without being able to see the graphs and figures used to teach them. A 
>> new
>> smartpen and paper technology that works with touch and records classroom
>> audio aims to bring these subjects to life for blind students.
>>
>> "Mainstream approaches to teaching STEM (science, technology, engineering
>> and math) courses all rely strongly on diagrams, graphs, charts and other
>> figures, putting students with visual disabilities at a significant
>> disadvantage," Andy Van Schaack, lecturer in Vanderbilt University's
>> Peabody College of education and human development, said. "Our goal is to
>> enable students and teachers to produce and explore diagrams and figures
>> through touch and sound using a smartpen and paper technology that is
>> low-cost, portable and easy to use."
>>
>> Van Schaack and colleague Joshua Miele, a researcher at the
>> Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute who is blind, have received a
>> $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to apply the new
>> technology, created by technology company Livescribe, to this effort. Van
>> Schaack is Livescribe's senior science adviser.
>>
>> "My area of expertise is instructional technology. I spend a lot of my
>> time trying to figure out how to use technology to make teaching and
>> learning more effective, efficient and accessible," Van Schaack said. "A
>> new world of possibilities has opened for the rapid creation of portable,
>> low-cost, high-quality accessible graphics enhanced with audio. For
>> example, a visually impaired psychology student could learn neuroanatomy
>> by exploring a diagram of the brain, with each lobe, gyrus and sulcus's
>> name spoken as the smartpen touches it."
>>
>> The Livescribe smartpen recognizes handwritten marks through a camera
>> inside its tip that focuses on a minute pattern of dots printed on paper.
>> It captures over 100 hours of audio through a built-in microphone and
>> plays audio back through a built-in speaker or 3D recording headset. 
>> Files
>> are uploaded from the pen to a computer using a USB connection. The
>> technology will be much more affordable and portable than previous
>> products used for this purpose -- students can just put it in their
>> backpacks with the rest of their books and notebooks.
>>
>> Van Schaack and Miele will be using a prototype of the Livescribe 
>> smartpen
>> and a Sewell Raised Line Drawing Kit, a Mylar-like film that is deformed
>> when a student writes on it with a pen, creating raised drawings. 
>> Students
>> will be able to touch a hand-drawn figure with their smartpen to hear
>> audio explanations of its features.
>>
>> As for other uses of the smartpen, Van Schaack believes the possibilities
>> are endless.
>>
>> "It really is a new computer platform -- it includes most of the
>> technology found in a typical laptop, but gets its information from
>> handwriting rather than from a keyboard and mouse," Van Schaack said. 
>> "One
>> of the most immediate uses of it that I see will be for college students.
>> It will allow them to spend more time listening in class while taking 
>> more
>> of an outline form of notes. Later, when they are reviewing their
>> handwritten notes, they can tap within them to hear what the professor 
>> was
>> saying when they wrote a particular note, giving them the opportunity to
>> annotate them for accuracy and additional detail."
>>
>> The smartpen is expected to hit stores during the first quarter of 2008 
>> at
>> a cost of less than $200. Livescribe interactive notebooks will run about
>> the same price as a good quality notebook from a college bookstore.
>>
>> Adapted from materials provided by Vanderbilt University.