Differentiated Instruction with Smartpen Technology
When students arrive at a post secondary institution there is a lot of navigating in order to support accommodations they may have had in high school. Students are sometimes hesitant to ask for support for fear of standing out as different than other students. Some simply do not understand how the system works in order to have accommodations transfer from high school to college. Federal laws under section 504 and the American Disabilities Act (ADA) protect students and insure accommodations are anonymously in place.
What happens to students that do not come to orientation/enroll with the proper paperwork? Faculty differentiate to support their needs. In my class I try to have our online classroom accessible for students who are visual and auditory learners (screen cast, short youtube videos, hyperlinks for professional vocabulary), for students who are ESL or limited language learners (have recordings of required text reading), for linguistic students, I provide lecture outline notes on Google Docs (again with hyperlinks, short videos to better explain concepts) and allow them to integrate personal technology to capture important concepts of discussion (computers, kindles, smart phones). Even this is not always enough so that is when it is fun to introduce technology to the whole class. When instructors do not specify who gets to use the technology, everyone benefits from the discovery of a new tool. Smartpens are one tool that would help students with ADD/ADHD, autism and even students with arthritis.
There are tons of models of Smartpens varying in size and price, but I will share one that we use at the college and another for art/drawing/graphic design that I researched.
Livescribe is a little bulky, but packs in a lot of features. You must use a special notebook that tracks digital recordings and segments of lessons while integrating graph, charts and diagrams. You can even add tags to refer or organize your notes. The user must touch the record locator on the page and the infrared camera begins recording based on self explanatory commands located on the notebook. You can listen to the recording or you can upload it to your computer/phone to have the notes typed or replayed. The pen can hold up to 12,000 pages of memory, translates 22 languages and weighs approximately .96 oz. All these features allow the classroom to be recreated while studying content. This is helpful in my class as class-notes are a part of the weekly assignments. Amazon sells these pens around $135 plus notebook $17/each (150 pages per notebook). At my college, students can check these out free of charge and students could also collaborate and share notes to reinforce learning.
The Neo Smartpen N2 is great for graphic design, mind mapping, brain storming, art or just doodling. You must first pair your pen with your phone then automatically everything you draw on the special dotted paper will appear on your phone. Later this can be saved into any file that you may be working with. The pen can also translate your writing into 13 different languages and only weighs 8 oz. These pens run about $170 with notebooks $20/each (approx 150 pages per notebook)
These options open up fun accommodations that support all students.
**References embedded in hyperlinks and researched on Amazon Prime.
aksoldotnaedtech 
Hi Heather! What a wonderful resource. I definitely would have loved having this as a college student years ago. I love that your college has these resources available for check out and sharing. Have you used any of these yourself? I’d be interested in the accuracy of the transcription and the distance at which the recordings can work. I’m thinking in lecture halls with hundreds of students how accurate this technology would be. Thanks for sharing!
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Nice post. For some applications, smart pens might be great. It seems a bit costly because you could just record with your pad or phone. Still, if you like the feel of a pen, it might be great.
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They are expensive for personal use but as assistive technology, it supports students during elementary and secondary……….in college, disability services are federally mandated to provide these if they are a part of the accommodation in their IEP from their senior year of high school or 504.
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Great point I might have a student try recording on one of our iPads and see the accuracy of both. That it vantage of the smart pen is that it also impacts your graphic representation charts and graphs into the lecture which would potential he be important in math and science where a lot of students struggle .
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Hi Katie! I am interested in knowing more! What is the advantage to using a smart pen? You mention this helping students with ADD, autism, or arthritis. How is it any different than writing notes with a regular pen, especially for a student with a physical constraint like arthritis? As far as creating digital notes, It takes out the step of scanning to make your notes digital, but that hardly seems worth the expense to me. Am I missing something? It’s difficult to convey through a message without sounding negative, so I feel I should say that I am being sincere and I hope you can open my eyes to this classroom technology.
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Heather, no offense taken at all, it is my job to provide clarity if someone does not understand the information I am sharing. Honestly, this is one of the things I love most about education. Smartpens are useful for students with arthritis because they both record and transcribe notes with very limited mobility from the hands. For my students, they would turn the pen on…..touch the page in the special notebook…..Maybe give a section of title or outline to organize notes, then after class, they could either listen to the lecture again or upload the transcribed notes to a computer and print the notes out for study purposes. We have even had assigned notetaker for students. It is fun for students to try out new technology while they help support a classmate that is having a bad day with a flare-up. I have seen students with autism and ADD/ADHD use this to doodle, create charts, graphs, and diagrams, but not be able to concentrate on written symbols, therefore, the pen captures all the important information which again can be listened to or uploaded to print….it would even include their personal graphics (extremely helpful if classroom notes are a part of their weekly assignments). This way, the students are connecting with a single aspect of the lecture that they can engage in at the time and leaving the rest of the work up to the Smartpen. They can also select a font that they can read well and even highlight important terms/concepts. They can search for key terms/phrases and even upload to social media to share with classmates to collaborate or create “pencasts”. This breaks the walls down of disabilities when students can truly contribute and connect with their peers. We train our students to find tools that meet their needs, these tools are then transferred to real-life applications in the workplace and society. They are expensive, but as a piece of assistive technology that is open to all students, it is worth the investment. Let me know if I can provide more clarity. I truly do not mind.
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Wow! I have been so focused on transitioning my students to the middle school that I never gave much thought to the accommodations they would need later in life. It is embarrassing to admit that I never thought about how the accommodations on IEPs and 504 plans transfer to a post-secondary institution. I love how the smartpens digitize notes and can record audio. This would help students who need extra time processing information or simply would like the option of going back to it when they study. What impressed me most about your post was that you mentioned the many accommodations that you make available to all of your students. English is my second language, so I personally appreciate the effort you put into including hyperlink definitions and audio for required readings. I wish more instructors, at the elementary, secondary, and post-secondary level would embed technology in the ways you described to help all of their learners. After reading your post, I was left wondering specifically how a smartpen could help students with ADD/ADHD.
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I just read your reply to Heather and it seems that you answered my question about ADD/ADHD.
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Hi Katie this is a repost, as my first one didn’t seem to get saved (bummer) I will do my best to replicate…So I had mentioned how having worked at Apple that the company eventually recanted on its position on the stylus with then CEO Steve jobs arguing the only stylus you need is your “index finger”. Clearly Apple was wrong and a few years back introduced the Apple Pencil https://www.apple.com/apple-pencil/ However based on user feed back it is amazing to use but struggles with reliability, so I do not recommend it. I did some work with a client from ATLA (Assistive Learning Technologies of Alaska) and began to dive more deeply into the adaptive features embedded a lot of the devices we use. The Livescribe experience has evolved to be an excellent choice especially with so much tech in one pen, and it actually writes too! Interestingly the creator also was the inventor of the LeapPad learning system https://www.leapfrog.com/en-us/products/leapstart
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Very interesting thank you for sharing your post. I disagree with Jobs About the index finger being the only stylist we need. From personal use I have for better control over a stylus for writing, visual representations, Collaborating these ideas, as well as digitizing and capturing notes . (Honestly I could hardly read my own writing using my index finger)I love the tech history that you have shared about the leapfrog and the progression of how educational technology has advanced over the years.
*** this response has been voice typed through Siri do you too surgical notations of my right arm. Please forgive Any format issues.
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Hi Katie, haha well Steve Jobs got a few things right in his time but also a great many things wrong as well. He was notorious for berating a vanguard idea from his teams only to recant later and adopt it as if it was his own idea to begin with. I definitely believe that when one puts ink or pencil to paper great things can happen, but that is not to say that this cannot happen via well crafted stylus tech, dictation software or beyond…who knows what’s possible when the experience can be augmented. Either way handwriting is tremendously expressive however as you are demonstrating the traditional ways can be adapted through technology to express and share!
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