Look & Feel? Good!

Kids do a First Look and Feel Test With The VibeWrite Lernstift

We seized the opportunity to let some girls aged 12-14 try the first VibeWrite Lernstift in a writing workshop in collaboration with the Frauen Büro, Salzburg. The girls immediately gathered round, to see what it was. Eager to look inside its smart package, they turned it over in their hands and run their fingers over the raised lettering  curiously looking at DiscoverWrite, one of the VibeWrite apps, that has a green fox encouraging them to learn more about words. Pulling the box out of its cover, the girls were met with the fox’s friendly greeting, „Let’s Learn with Good Vibrations“ moving through a magical landscape of imaginary characters.

Inside the box lay VibeWrite’s Lernstift in all its spring green splendor. The girls were eager to give the pen a try and quickly started writing their name, as well as: „VibeWrite Learning Pen“ and „Kugelschreiber“ for practice, as I asked them questions such as „What does the pen feel like to hold? Is it too smooth“? Most of the girls were able to write comfortably and found it quite a novelty in comparison with their normal pens. The side grips gave the girls the ability to hold the pen without slipping. Whilst some of them found the Lernstift a little heavy, this didn’t hinder their writing too much. One of them in particular was able to write on and off for 30 minutes and quite fluently. Writing by hand is something that the girls were used to. Writing in their second language, English, was even more of a challenge.  However, they responded with enthusiasm, as we explored different writing activities such as creating their own headline for newspaper articles, as well as writing their own portraits of women that they admired, based on their own interests and future achievements. Keeping their attention, wasn’t a problem. As they put pen to paper, their focus was impressive. The girls were easily able to write for long periods as their ideas flowed from pen to page. Having recently written a blog post on how writing by hand stimulates attention to the task at hand (Writing in the iPad Age) I was able to see, how this was clearly the case, especially when paired with activities that the students are interested in.

In an age where there is so much information being bombarded to children and teenagers on a daily basis, there is an increasing need to create products and tools that respond to our digital age.  However it is important to help them make the bridge between the tools that they are trained to use in traditional and pedagogical contexts, with modern digital applications, so that they can find and create more contextual associations. With The VibeWrite Learning Pen these connections are made visible, giving the children, teenagers and also adults the opportunity to enhance their knowledge and skills grounded in their solid foundation. VibeWrite takes the good old things and turns them into products, that are not only innovative, but also, as we are increasingly beginning to see, essential and even necessary in our daily lives.