Education and the Struggle Within

For most of us school can be difficult, but for those with impairments such as blindness, school becomes much more than just a mental challenge. The biggest problem is not just reading which could be solved by braille or online textbooks which read aloud but by charts, graphs, and diagrams. Courses such as math and physics use graphs all the time, and biology courses use diagrams of the human body to show where things are and where processes take place in the body. Simple read aloud software isn't adequate for these situations. Because of these scenarios a smart pen and paper technology has been developed. The pen contains an audio recorder and computer processing device. The pen could be used to record a professor's lecture while taking notes. Later the lecture can be played back, so the notes can be better completed. Also the pen will be able to work with Sewer Raised Line Drawing Kit. The drawing kit creates raised images when drawn on. This images can also have audio added to them, so that when the smart pen is moved over the image information will be generated through audio about the particular parts of the image. The pen can be linked via USB to a computer to store the audio in a more permanent place, since the pen itself only holds 100 hours of audio. This technology has apparent uses for the blind, but this technology could be used for anyone. If textbooks were filled with "smart paper" or at least the images were, then we could all use a "smart pen" to learn more about the image by simply placing the pen over the image. "Smart paper" could also allow more information to be stored in less space for textbooks if the paper could be made cheap enough and wasn't bulky.