Moar Penz, Plox!

I have a brief opportunity to buy more of those pens you helped me buy for the Disabled Students' Program for $60 apiece instead of $150.

If you can help, please do! I'll buy as many as we collect money for, and donate them to my program when they arrive. Thank you thank you thank you!

Why smartpens?

An anonymous commenter challenged me on some points related to why I donate the pens. Here are my responses:

1) How is this so unique? can't any mp3 recorder do this?

Nope. The cool thing, which you can see at the link I gave here, is that there's a video camera in the pen, and special dots on the paper, so that if, let's say, you took a note while your prof was talking about the Renaissance, and you either can't read it, or can't remember why you wrote "cobalt plus!" in big letters, you can take the pen, click on the words "cobalt plus!" and hear your actual professor's voice saying exactly what she was saying when you wrote those words. It's a wonderful tool.

2) what about personal responsibility? why not involve the students in the fund raising process?

You're assuming a lot here. First, that I'm not a student with a disability myself (I am). Second, that the students aren't helping to buy these pens. But chiefly, that people should have to expend a bunch of effort and money to be awarded (I chose that word carefully) an equal opportunity. An equal educational opportunity is one's birthright, I daresay, but even if it weren't, it's US law. Whether or not you agree with it, we can't charge students for receiving reasonable academic accommodations, nor do we want to. If you were born with the ability to see and I wasn't, I should NOT be charged extra to get my class materials in electronic format or Braille, and by US law, I cannot be.

3) why are people with disabilities so often the recipients of good will? they can work for things.

Sometimes they/we can, and sometimes not. Regardless, there are great tools out there that are out of the reach of some students. Some of our students buy their own pens, with their own or their parents' money. For some students, that's simply not an option. Factor in that people with disabilities are far (far, far, far, far) less likely to be employed and far (far, far, far) more likely to live in poverty than average, and you may see that this is not an act of charity, but of fairness.

4) when those students graduate, there will be no office to help them get what they need (at least no one to help without a lot of advocacy) - why not help them learn what they can do on their own?

Yes, of COURSE there will be offices to help them get what they need. http://www.ada.gov ; Well-trained HR offices. Community organizations. And we DO help them learn what they can do on their own. But we do it without forgetting that there are some things that some people cannot do by themselves. It's neither dependence nor independence that is the proper balance here, but *interdependence*. People in the disability community rely on each other. It has always been so, and often it's so because at the end of the day, you rely on the ones you know will understand where you're coming from.

(no subject)

[EDIT: Don't send more money, please! The sale is over. We bought 3 pens -- or, really, 3 computers, because that's what these things are. As soon as they come, I'll donate them. My bosses are going to know how fabu my friends are, that's for sure!]

Because 1saleaday.com's deals sometimes run out quickly, I'm buying pens as soon as I have the money in PayPal to do so. Two Three pens so far (US$195 collected so far)! You dear darlings rock.