11/7/2023 0 Comments Pen scribe recorder![]() The Disabled Students Program is now expanding its use of the Livescribe pens with students with disabilities, based in part on the study’s findings. “What the team has accomplished with their evaluation has already caused a stir in the field - a good one,” said Hippolitus. On the other hand, students who have an auditory-processing problem and learn best by reading are unlikely to benefit from the pen “No matter how many times they listen to the recording, the pen doesn’t overcome their functional limitation,” said Hippolitus. Students who learn by listening can benefit from relistening to the pen’s audio recording outside of the commotion of the classroom. “By talking to students about their experiences, the evaluation revealed this key decision point about when to use the pen and when not to use the pen,” said Paul Hippolitus, the director of the Disabled Students Program. “The benefits they got from the pen really depended on the details of their learning disability,” concluded Rao. He could then use the pen to replay just the section of the audio recording associated with each of his keywords. Another participant with a physical disability limiting his fine motor control found the pen especially useful his notetaking is restricted to writing a single word to describe each part of the lecture. ![]() One student would go back and rewrite the notes he had taken in class, while re-listening to the lecture recording. How the students used the pen depended on the subject matter of the course, as well the student’s specific notetaking and study strategies. “We found that people used it in a lot of different ways, because they have lots of different learning styles,” explained Baker. The staff of the Disabled Students Program were excited by the students’ findings about which students are most likely to benefit from the pen. “Even if the students didn’t go back and re-listen to the lectures, just knowing that they could go back helped them relax more in the classroom.” Smartpen’s benefits depend on the details of the learning disability “I was surprised by the results,” said Penny. ![]() “When you’re trying to learn, suffering from anxiety is really not good!” Another student referred to the pen as her “back-up ears” when she uses the pen to record lectures, she doesn’t have to worry about missing important information, she said. “When I miss something, it creates an enormous amount of anxiety for me,” explained one pilot test participant who suffers from anxiety and ADD. Many of the students reported that the pen reduced their classroom anxiety and freed them up to pay better attention. Although the study was too short to determine whether students’ grades improved, another finding was particularly striking - the new sense of confidence that the smartpen seemed to provide. The evaluation revealed several interesting insights into the smartpen. The smartpen records audio from the class along with a digital version of the student’s handwritten notes, syncing the two audio and notes can then be accessed for review through either the pen itself or through Livescribe’s computer software. student Kevin Huang, a master’s student in mechanical engineering and Aditi Rao, a recent graduate from Berkeley’s architecture and city planning departments.įorty students with a variety of physical and learning disabilities participated in the DSP’s pilot program and were provided with a Livescribe Echo smartpen for taking class notes. The evaluation team included Penny, now a second-year MIMS student Lindsay Baker, an architecture Ph.D. The Disabled Students Program arranged with School of Information professor Nancy Van House to recruit students from her graduate-level user experience research course, Information 214, which connects graduate students with real-world technology users for the class evaluation project. “But our research showed that it’s more complicated than that.” “Initially, the DSP was hoping that the use of the pen would lessen the students’ reliance on hired notetakers,” explained Christen Penny, an I School student on the evaluation team. When the UC Berkeley Disabled Students Program started a pilot test providing Livescribe computerized pens to students with learning disabilities, I School students volunteered to evaluate whether the pens could improve student learning and substitute for companion notetakers.
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