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sereneI've thought of a way to help our students with disabilities directly, AND make a positive impact on my department's budget, and if anyone wants to help, I think this would be a wonderful way to make an actual difference without spending a ton of money.
There's this great pen called the Pulse SmartPen, and it's *amazing*. If you want, go to their site and view a demo, but basically, while you take your notes in class, it records audio of the lecture, and then when you get home, it uploads to your computer, and you can point at any place in your notes (say, where you don't understand what you wrote, or where something's going to be on the test), and it will replay the audio of the lecture to you. [EDIT: Several of our staff and students use the pen, and they all say it works really well and is a lifesaver to folks with ADHD and learning disabilities, among others.]
This will help students in many ways:
1) Instead of depending on other students' notes in order to accommodate their disability, this will be notes in their own style, that make sense for them
2) After they graduate from school, the pen will help the student in office and grad school settings, where human notetakers are not always practical or even allowed
3) ALL students in the class, not just students with disabilities, can share notes if the note-taking student uploads them to the LiveScribe site.
4) The student who takes the notes has instant access to the notes, instead of having to wait for a notetaker to copy and/or scan and/or email them.
It will help our department, too:
1) Finding and hiring and tracking and paying human notetakers is a painstaking process. It doesn't pay students much, and students who take notes might drop the class or flake on giving notes, so our students don't always get what they need as quickly as we/they/I'd like.
2) The pens cost $130-$150 (depending on sales) as a one-time purchase, and downloading the special paper to print is free, whereas human notetakers get around that much per semester per class.
3)The pens are cheap enough that small-change donors (like me!) can make at least a dent in buying one or more.
Anyone wanna chip in on a pen (or more than one)? I'm committing to donating at least one pen to the department, to give to a student*. More would be excellent. There'll be a PayPal button at the bottom of all my posts through the end of next week. Of course, please do not donate if your own situation doesn't allow it, or if you just don'wanna.
* I am planning to just hand it over to my co-workers, whose job it is to counsel our students, and let them decide who gets it. They're good folks and I trust them to help students for whom the pen is an appropriate accommodation.
There's this great pen called the Pulse SmartPen, and it's *amazing*. If you want, go to their site and view a demo, but basically, while you take your notes in class, it records audio of the lecture, and then when you get home, it uploads to your computer, and you can point at any place in your notes (say, where you don't understand what you wrote, or where something's going to be on the test), and it will replay the audio of the lecture to you. [EDIT: Several of our staff and students use the pen, and they all say it works really well and is a lifesaver to folks with ADHD and learning disabilities, among others.]
This will help students in many ways:
1) Instead of depending on other students' notes in order to accommodate their disability, this will be notes in their own style, that make sense for them
2) After they graduate from school, the pen will help the student in office and grad school settings, where human notetakers are not always practical or even allowed
3) ALL students in the class, not just students with disabilities, can share notes if the note-taking student uploads them to the LiveScribe site.
4) The student who takes the notes has instant access to the notes, instead of having to wait for a notetaker to copy and/or scan and/or email them.
It will help our department, too:
1) Finding and hiring and tracking and paying human notetakers is a painstaking process. It doesn't pay students much, and students who take notes might drop the class or flake on giving notes, so our students don't always get what they need as quickly as we/they/I'd like.
2) The pens cost $130-$150 (depending on sales) as a one-time purchase, and downloading the special paper to print is free, whereas human notetakers get around that much per semester per class.
3)The pens are cheap enough that small-change donors (like me!) can make at least a dent in buying one or more.
Anyone wanna chip in on a pen (or more than one)? I'm committing to donating at least one pen to the department, to give to a student*. More would be excellent. There'll be a PayPal button at the bottom of all my posts through the end of next week. Of course, please do not donate if your own situation doesn't allow it, or if you just don'wanna.
* I am planning to just hand it over to my co-workers, whose job it is to counsel our students, and let them decide who gets it. They're good folks and I trust them to help students for whom the pen is an appropriate accommodation.