Using Smartpens to Support Note-Taking Skills of Students with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

For students with learning disabilities (LD), note taking during lectures and discussions is a difficult task. Many students have difficulties with listening comprehension and written expression, two important skills vital for successful note taking during teacher lectures. Note taking is a cognitively demanding task whereby students must temporarily hold/rehearse incoming verbal lecture information, quickly construct representations into meaningful bits of information that can be recorded, and then transcribe the bits of meaningful information onto paper before the information is lost and before processing any new incoming information. Despite the difficulty of this task, smartpen technology can aid students during note taking by storing verbal lecture information and then syncing it up when students amend their partial notes. This article provides an overview of a smartpen strategy and a guide for teachers to implement this assistive technology in their classroom and improve the note taking of students with LD.