Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


U Texas Ed Students Apply Tablets and Pen Technology to Literacy

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 01/07/13

A group of education students at the University of Texas at Austin will be experimenting with the use of Android tablets and pen technology to use in their pre-service literacy instruction in the classrooms where they student-teach. The experiment will outfit future teachers at the university's College of Education in order to help them develop personalized instruction and interventions for their students.

N-trig is donating a set of Duosense Active Pens to the project, and the college's Learning Technology Center is distributing a fleet of pen-enabled tablets. The pen enables users to write and annotate directly on-screen as they would on a textbook or piece of paper.

The pre-service teachers will use the duo to maintain digital recordings of their handwritten notes during writing conferences with students. The IDEA Studio, which is part of the center, is developing a system to help teachers use handwriting recognition software and the pen technology to make student writing conferences more productive and efficient.

"In the past, if teachers wanted to maintain digital records about a child's literacy learning, they had to either type handwritten notes after a writing conference or use a tablet application that only allowed them to checkbox a few progress categories," said Karen French, IDEA Studio coordinator. "With the N-trig active pen, they can detail the student's progress with specific individualized comments and add recommendations for future lessons. An active pen that allows handwriting in this manner is a game changer."

Added Learning Technology Center Director Paul Resta, "The tablet's touch and pen combination, powered by N-trig, creates a very natural way to comment, like a pen on paper. I believe this is an important effort that will not only help university faculty enhance existing methods for promoting children's literacy, but could also lead to the development of tools that will help all teachers."

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • Binary code flows through a digital pathway with red and blue lights in a dark background

    Survey: Enterprises Say They Are Ready for Agentic AI Failures, but Few Test Recovery Often

    Most enterprise organizations say they are ready to recover from disruptions involving agentic AI, but a new survey of more than 300 IT decision-makers from Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States suggests relatively few test those plans often enough to prove it.

  • holographic interface of a file manager, folder structure with documents and data

    Why Universities Need to Align Data Storage with Data Value

    Institutions need to move away from a reactive habit of expanding storage and towards a more deliberate data management model based on understanding and control.

  • abstract smartphone translucent screen displaying AI interface

    Apple Introduces Redesigned Siri AI

    At its recent Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple introduced Siri AI, a redesigned version of its voice assistant that Apple describes in its own announcement as "a profoundly more capable and personal assistant." The update is intended to make Siri more conversational, more context-aware, and more useful across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro.

  • large cloud icon on the right in an abstract world above a polygon with a dark blue background

    Cloud Security Alliance Expands Focus on Governance and Assurance for Agentic AI Systems

    The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) recently announced a series of CSAI Foundation milestones aimed at securing what it calls the agentic control plane, including a new catastrophic risk initiative, CVE Numbering Authority authorization, and the acquisition of two agentic AI specifications.