I stole that line from the presenter at the assistive technology conference I went to last week. But it is TRUE! And you know how much I love the iPad, so the LiveScribe pen has a lot to live up to.
Ok, here's the link to the website for LiveScribe, which provides some visuals and details about what the pen actually is. Think of it as a smartpen, like your iPhone is a smartphone. It really is a pen, with ink, used on paper - but it's also a mini computer, with incredible functionality. When you use the pen on the LiveScribe paper and press the "record" icon on the paper, the pen starts recording the audio and tracks it to the notes you're taking. Later, you can tap any of your notes and the audio that was recorded at the time you made that note will start playing. You can also sync the pen with your desktop, and save the notes and audio on the computer. And THEN you can email it, share it on Facebook, create a PDF of the notes.....pretty remarkable.
Its initial intended use was probably the high school/college student taking lecture classes and writing down copious notes. Having the playback feature would be helpful to any highschooler, but probably critically helpful to kids who have trouble taking notes and listening to lectures at the same time (e.g., kids with executive function issues, or auditory processing disorders, etc.). One could envision a peer notetaker using the device in class, and then giving his notes and pen to the student with special needs. What a great device to support inclusion in the classroom!
What I find *really* exciting, though, are the potential uses of the pen for kids in preschool and elementary school. They're not taking notes during a lecture - but they are learning to read and spell. For this age group, the pen seems most effective in the hands of the teacher or therapist. You know how preschools and kindergarten walls are covered in words and maps? Well, the teacher can draw dots on the LiveScribe paper, cut the paper dots out, and paste them next to each word, or perhaps on a location on a map. The teacher can then "load" the dot with relevant audio - perhaps just saying the word, perhaps providing the definition of the word. Later, with the pen (that created the dots), a student can tap the dot and hear the audio.
I mean, whoa! This whole dot thing has SO many possibilities. You can make ANY book an audio book, simply by pasting in a dot and loading it with audio of the words on that page. A SLP could make an articulation worksheet, have the child practice drills, and then review the audio later. Another use is that a child's speech support team at school could record the child's articulation, and then provide the data to the parents that night. (Think of the disputes that could be avoided, if everyone is accessing the same objective data!)
Then you have the possibility of the teacher creating "pencasts". Here, a math teacher, say, would use the pen and paper and record a lesson. Then, she could upload the notes and audio, and provide the link to her students. This could be used in a flipped-classroom model (like the Khan Academy, where the lectures are the "homework" and problem sets are done in the classroom), or, as extra support on topics that multiple kids find challenging.
The potential cost savings to school districts is remarkable. The pen comes in three different models, with different levels of memory (kind of like the iPad), and the prices ranges from $99-$199. The paper is $20 for a pack of 4 notebooks, which isn't bad, especially if you think about how many dots you can draw on a single page.
And the sheer number of technologies that the LiveScribe system can replace is astonishing. The pen, paper, and a document camera can be used to replace overhead projectors and Smart Boards (which cost thousands of dollars.) Second, as I've mentioned before, a LiveScribe pen can replace adult notetakers assigned to support a specific child. Third, there's really no need for special software/computers to make tests accessible to kids with motor difficulties - teachers can create accessible tests in 2 minutes using the LiveScribe pen.
I think this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how this pen can be used to support kids - both typical and special needs - in the classroom and enable their academic success. And I'd love to hear other ways that people are using the LiveScribe pen creatively, either in the classroom or otherwise.
And no, I didn't get a free LiveScribe pen for writing this. Sigh. But I would gladly, gladly take one.
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