Thanks, Livescribe!

The Livescribe Pulse SmartPen - an individualized 21st century learning tool that we are introducing in West Africa -- provides an eye-opening and innovative learning intervention in a world where technology integration has always been associated with installing school computer labs and then learning ICT skills in them.

The Livescribe SmartPen is an amazing new learning tool! The SmartPen records and links audio to what you write on special 'dot' paper. Then you just touch the pen tip to whatever was written, and the linked audio plays back though the pen’s speaker or plug-in earphones. The power of the SmartPen lies in it’s ability to combine four ways of learning – reading, writing, speaking and listening – into a rechargable, take-anywhere package.

Thanks to the Livescribe Corporation, we are able to pilot the SmartPen in both middle schools and after-school learning environments. Middle school teachers in Louga, Senegal, are actively using the SmartPen as part of English, science, math, and geography instruction, as well as for student note-taking. I recently observed a math teacher who was using the Smartpen to explain the step-by-step logic behind a geometry exercise. I also observed students learning English by first sketching a car and then labeling the parts with an audio recording of the word (correct pronunciation and all!), and learning geography by drawing a map of Senegal and using the SmartPen to record audio commentary on the different geographic regions. It was amazing!

We are also using the SmartPen as part of an after-school program in partnership with the “10,000 Girls” initiaitve in Kaolack, Senegal. In this setting, it is the girls who, along with their after-school tutor, will define the best ways to use the SmartPen's capacity to enhance and make the most of their tutoring and peer-learning time.

In total, we have already started to pilot the SmartPen with over 120 students! Students are highly motivated to learn when the SmartPen is integrated into classroom instruction. Still, we believe that the real power of the SmartPen lies in it’s ability to individualize instruction. We also plan to use the SmartPen as a means for teachers to communicate with illiterate parents who might otherwise never engage in a school/home dialogue.

CyberSmart! Africa’s work in Louga, Senegal, is in partnership with The Millennium Villages Project and its urban counterpart, the Millennium Cities Initiative. Both are joint initiatives of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Millennium Promise and the United Nations Development Programme.

Read though our continuing postings about how CyberSmart! Africa is using the Livescribe Pulse SmartPen, and watch for videos that show the SmartPen in action!