LiveScribe Pen / Review

[SailorMom]

We got DS's pen yesterday! New toy - very exciting :)

 

We purchased a refurbished Echo 4gb (with the USB cable - the wi-fi one gets so/so reviews) for about $85.00 from Livescribe (one year warranty).

 

We've only had it for (not even) 24 hours, but I am quite impressed. Both with the pen and the computer interface once the pen sends the info to the computer.

 

DS has almost everything you can put a "dys" in front of (dysgraphia, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia....), and now that he is in high school, these issues were becoming exponetially more difficult to deal with.

We have been working diligently on note taking skills, word processing, etc., but had hit a wall.

With note taking - he can either write somewhat legibly but extremely slowly, or quickly with chicken scrawl not even he can read later.

 

With the LiveScribe pen, we did a "practice" lecture (only about 10 minutes long) reviewing parts of speech. He would write down main topics and a few key words (think Key Word Outlining) while the pen recorded what I was saying while he wrote.

After the lecture, we could put the pen anywhere on the writing and hear what I was saying when he wrote the word. Not only can he write clearly and slowly, he can pay more attention to what I am saying and not worry about missing things. He can also use the recording to add notes he thinks are important after the fact.

 

As for the computer interface - it's really cool. Everything (in his handwriting), both words and drawings / diagrams, is transferred by page into a very user-friendly program. You can see the pages, scroll through them, and when you click on a word or a drawing, the audio from the recording plays back while you watch a green outline follow the writing.

 

Anyway - my skeptical DH was impressed as well and is now convinced it was worth every penny :)

 

Questions?

[geodob]

What is even more impressive, is that within 24 hours both of you have able to quickly work out and understand how to use it !

[SailorMom]

Well - I'm not too swift on technology - so that shows you how easy it is :)

[merry gardens]

Thank you for sharing about this! Questions for you. Do you think it would have helped him at an earlier age to have this? Or is it mostly appropriate for high school level and beyond for note taking?

[SailorMom]

I could see going back and starting in, say, 7th - maybe. For us - it is mostly for note taking now.

Although, thinking about it now, it may have come in really handy for things like vocabulary words, math concepts, etc.