Smart Studying
From: NASA Tech Briefs Insider - 12/06/2007

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses often employ
graphs, diagrams, and figures, putting students with visual
disabilities at a significant disadvantage. The company Livescribe has
created a smartpen and paper technology that aims to bring these
subjects to life for blind students.

Andy Van Schaack, a lecturer at Vanderbilt University, and Joshua
Miele, a researcher at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute,
have received a $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to
apply the new smartpen technology. Their goal is to enable students and
teachers to produce and explore figures through touch and sound, using
an affordable and portable technology.

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. Van Schaack and Miele will use a prototype of the
Livescribe smartpen and a Sewell Raised Line Drawing Kit - a film that
is deformed when written on 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.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/news/releases/2007/12/3/new-smartpen-and-paper-to-help-teach-blind-college-students

Links:
New smartpen and paper to help teach blind college students
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/news/smartpen

A new pen computer may help visually Impaired study math, science
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/stories/smartpen.html

Andy Van Schaack
http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x5093.xml

Joshua Miele
http://www.ski.org/Rehab/JAMiele/

Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute
http://www.ski.org/

Livescribe
http://www.livescribe.com/