New Technology Will Benefit Blind College Students

According to a press release on Newswise.com, researchers at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute have received a $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant is to be used to adapt a technology created by a company called Livescribe so that it is useful to students who are blind. The technology will be developed into a "Smartpen" and will also have a paper component that will work with touch. This will enable students who are blind to "see" graphs and charts. The researchers are Andy Van Schaack, who is a lecturer in Vanderbilt University's Peabody College of Education and Human Development and Joshua Miele, who is with the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute. Joshua Miele is blind .

Van Schaack is the also the senior science adviser for Livescribe. He states that courses such as science, technology, engineering and math (also known as STEM courses), are all ones that are taught with the emphasis being on charts, graphs, and diagrams. Van Schaack states that this fact creates a "significant disadvantage" to students who are blind. According to Van Schaack, their goal is to provide blind students with a technology to remedy this issue with a product that is "low-cost, portable and easy to use".

Van Schaack says, "...a visually impaired psychology student could learn neuroanatomy by exploring a diagram of the brain, with each lobe, gyros and sulcus's name spoken as the smartpen touches it".

The technology will work by translating written images through a camera located in the pen. It will read the dots on the paper. According to the press release, this pen and the paper component will be much more cost effective than previous technology. The technology will incorporate a Sewell Raised Line Drawing Kit. The Sewell Raised Line Drawing Kit is a technology that creates Braille type drawings on mylar when the student writes on the film.

This new product is similar to the technology in a laptop, according to Van Schaack. He states that the difference is that this product will get its data from writing instead of from the keyboard and mouse. One of the applications will be that students can take handwritten notes in outline form and then use the audio portion of the pen to fill in the blanks as they are reviewing their notes.

The product will be in stores in early 2008 and is expected to be less than $200. The paper component, which will be the Livescribe interactive notebooks will also be available from college bookstores and will be priced comparably to other college notebooks.

Schaack's hope is that this product will open up " a new world of possibilities" for the visually impaired.

Sources Used:
Newswise.com
New Smartpen and Paper to Help Teach Blind College Students
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/535846/