Livescribe Pulse pen for notetaking and maybe as AAC device

Posted by 14 on the 7th July, 2009

One of the new devices on show at CALL's recent ICT and Inclusion sessions was the rather amazing Livescribe Pulse Pen.

You can see the product description (with video) at Livescribe.com

It has been designed for note-taking and could be useful to students and older school pupils with memory or writing difficulties of speed, legibility or spelling (or all of these). It's not particularly new to have a pen that records audio (though this one is good quality audio and can pick up teacher talk so long as student is at the front of the room) but this device follows through, so you can also quickly and easily transfer the file  to your computer and link the recording to your written notes / diagrams, share notes via email, convert your written notes into a word processor file (with the audio still attached). The special notebook that is part of the pen pack might be an attractive alternative to heaving a laptop around everywhere.

The Livescribe Pulse pen is marketed in the UK, you can find more details at Dyslexic.com It's not unduly expensive at approx. £199

For those with an AAC interest, Karen Janowski from the USA outlines on her Teaching Every Student blog how you could use the Livescribe to create a talking communication book, and links to an interesting article that describes in detail how to do this, see "Augmentative Communication: A Low-Cost and Lightweight Communication Device with Natural Speech."