While looking through The Pen Company‘s products last week I came across a slightly unusual pen from Scheinder: the Base Senso. The description read ‘This rollerball can sense when too much pressure is being applied, and will warn by illuminating the light at the end of the pen‘. How curious.
Easger to find out more I went to Schneider’s web site which provided some further information: The pen ‘indicates when too much writing pressure is exerted and teaches how to judge the right pressure for fluid writing. Ideal for beginners and for people with motor difficulties‘.
There’s even a seal that implies this pen has been developed together with a a joint expert.
An interesting idea. I’m just imagining a classroom full of children with blinking pens…
The main concern I would have with a pen like this (and the light as bright as it looks in the picture) is regarding students who have sensory-processing disabilities, for whom the light would not be an alert, but a slap on the wrist (akin to someone’s wrist being tugged when they wrote with their dominant hand a hundred years ago, if they were right brain/left hand dominant).
I was diagnosed with multiple sensory-processing disabilities when I was younger, and I would not have been able to learn to write if the association between ‘pressing too hard’ and ‘wrong/bad’ (or just ‘bad’ and ‘writing’ at all) was set in my mind, even after I might’ve stopped using this device.
I would never, ever suggest a child on the autism spectrum be assigned a device like this pen for the purpose of cursive-writing practice; the vast majority of youngsters who have been or diagnosed or would be in the future have sensory-processing limitations and tolerances akin to mine.
That’s nifty! I wonder if this special feature does not rather contribute to the students deliberately pressing harder 😉
I see what you mean. Every time the light goes on they might get embarrassed about their ‘mistake’. I guess the light looking so strong is photoshopped. I can’t imagine it being that strong, but I haven’t seen it in reality. I’m not sure how this is supposed to be used. Based on what you say it might be ok to be used by a child and she/he is on their own – just for their own information.
Good evening, Memm!
On second viewing (I’m sorry for taking this long to respond; I forgot to turn on Email Notification of subsequent replies when I posted the response above a few days ago), it does look more like a doctored ‘lens flare’ flash/brightness, which I doubt the actual product supplies.
I wanted to mention the sensory-processing aspect of a light going on when a youngster who might use this pen goes on, which would’ve strongly affected me with the disabilities I have, including a sensory association with good or bad events in my memory. My first teachers (one of whom accompanied my mother and I to my appointments with the behavioural specialist who diagnosed my sensory-processing disorder when I was very young) were very good at adapting their teaching methods per student, concentrating on aptitutes and range of abilities, not simply how much could be ‘done’ by a certain point.
I’ve always been best a solitary learner, and part of that is how I handle environmental sensory input; movie theatres I can’t handle, but a quiet crowd or group listening to a speaker on stage I often thrive in. Conventions (science-fiction, in my case) were similarly a place of great comfort for me, and most hotels where they were held here locally to me had plenty of chairs and tables and lots of room, where one could draw or write or decompress from sustained activity, and the people I attended those conventions with were some of the most respectful people I’ve met in my life when it came to personal space or needing it, and respecting and allowing me a bit of space to regenerate.
As long as the light on the end of the pen wasn’t terribly bright- more like a small notification than a high-beam headlamp, I’m quite sure- learning using it in quiet or on my own would’ve probably worked out.
-2Paw.