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Handbury and Winifred Berry Libraries

Is the pen mightier than the keyboard?

Ever wondered why the devices we issue at College have a pen and a keyboard?

Have you read about the value of using a pen and paper to master learning?

Microsoft have been developing Windows to specifically support this type of learning. The devices we use at school are different makes than the one referred to below, but they offer the same functionality.

Here’s an excerpt from a report citing research results that demonstrate that a digital pen has positive impact on the brain in the same way.

“Across March and May 2016, a total of 20 Master and Bachelor students between the ages of 21-25 were recruited by Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) to take part in the study.

The participants used 2-in-1 Surface Pro 4 devices as part of an experiment based on the popular family game, Pictionary™ (Hasbro, 1985). Twenty words were presented three times in a random order. For each trial participants were instructed to:

Typewrite the word repetitively separated by a single space using their right index finger on the laptop tablet keyboard,
Describe the word using their right index finger on the laptop tablet keyboard,
Copy the word using their right hand with a stylus on a second, identical laptop tablet. Two identical Microsoft Surface Pro 4 laptop tablets with Type Cover and Surface-pen were used. The laptop data produced by the participants were stored in Microsoft OneNote for offline analysis.

The scientists used a Geodesic Sensor Net (GSN) 200 – essentially, a very high-tech ‘hairnet’ – consisting of 256 sensors evenly distributed on the participant’s head, to measure brain activity throughout the experiment. The data captured from the sensors was analysed to deliver the researchers’ conclusions”.