Resources and ideas for teachers of learners with severe, profound, intensive, significant, complex or multiple special needs.
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Wednesday, September 14, 2011
V-Pen AAC Now in USA
I have been gazing with longing at the V-Pen (from Unlimiter) system for sometime now. Until recently it was not available in the United States, however PCI has begun to carry it. The V-Pen is an electronic talking pen which "reads" letters, words or symbols from a paper. It comes with two spelling boards and seven adhesive stickers. You can also purchase a V-Board of symbols and VoiceInk software to make your own boards. VoiceInk boards can also be accessed using the free VoiceInk app on an iPad. The integrated system is called Uni-Tech. Both the VoiceInk boards and the software use the PingPong Boy Symbol Set (also from Unlimiter). Check it out in the video:
Sadly it is possible that the V-Pen system has made it to the USA too late. The price point for the pen and boards is $1,499.95 and the software adds another $499.95 to that. For that price you can buy an iPad2 with Proloquo2Go AND TouchChat plus a stylus and portable speakers. The tablet movement may be out too far ahead for the V-Pen to take hold.
If you are tied to the idea of a board and pen system you can try using the AnyBook Reader plus stickers (with is about $55.00 with extra memory) on a communication board you make with Boardmaker or SymbolMate or even Microsoft Word and Google Images.
Have you checked out the Pulse Smart pens? They are pens which have a small video camera near the pen tip and a microphone at the top so you can record audio to accompany any thing you write or draw. Although they were originally designed for student note taking I have found it to be invaluable in my speech & language therapy practice.
I clicked through from google reader to tell you about the smart pen. I see someone beat me to it :) The company has actually released a new version called the echo smartpen.
I am not personally using it but a close friend just got one for a journalism college program. She uses it to simultaneously take notes and record lectures. If she gets too overwhelmed/tired to take notes she can just draw a star and keep the pen recording audio and fill in notes later on when she has more focus. Then when she is looking at her notes later she can just tap the star to start the audio playing back from that point. You can also get stickers that you can tap to have an audio clip played. I saw a video of a kindergarten class using them. They tapped a word on the word wall and the pen read the word to them. The website has tons of information. http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/smartpen/echo/
plus stickers (with is about $55.00 with extra memory) on a communication board you make with Boardmaker or SymbolMate or even Microsoft Word and Google Images.
Have you checked out the Pulse Smart pens? They are pens which have a small video camera near the pen tip and a microphone at the top so you can record audio to accompany any thing you write or draw. Although they were originally designed for student note taking I have found it to be invaluable in my speech & language therapy practice.
ReplyDeleteI clicked through from google reader to tell you about the smart pen. I see someone beat me to it :) The company has actually released a new version called the echo smartpen.
ReplyDeleteCan either of you explain more how you are using the echo pens?
ReplyDeleteI am not personally using it but a close friend just got one for a journalism college program. She uses it to simultaneously take notes and record lectures. If she gets too overwhelmed/tired to take notes she can just draw a star and keep the pen recording audio and fill in notes later on when she has more focus. Then when she is looking at her notes later she can just tap the star to start the audio playing back from that point.
ReplyDeleteYou can also get stickers that you can tap to have an audio clip played. I saw a video of a kindergarten class using them. They tapped a word on the word wall and the pen read the word to them.
The website has tons of information. http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/smartpen/echo/