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.