Saturday, October 24, 2020

OCR in your Pocket!

Hey Tek-ninjas! Just the other day I shared a post from SLP extraordinaire Ryanne Zavacky. I've got another great idea from her today, and this one should really speak to my Occupational Therapist and Educator friends.

In this blog post, Ryanne writes about Google Keep

Use free Google Keep to take pictures of your teacher’s notes on the whiteboard, sticky notes, worksheets, book passages, etc.

It will even read cursive. Watch out for white board glare which can interfere with the OCR.

Just open up a new Keep, add a photo, tap on the photo and give it a few seconds before touching the vertical ellipsis to reveal the “grab image text” option. If you don’t see the option, hit the back arrow and try again.

Took about 8 seconds to read the candy wrapper. You can highlight the text and read aloud or zoom

in with your built-in accessibility features. Of course, nothing is perfect….

I love this idea from Ryanne. It is such a great tool for students who struggle with organization and never copy down the homework or notes correctly. Using their personal phones (of course with teacher/parent permission) teaches them how to leverage universal technology to support themselves. Personally, without my phone and calendar this ADD adult would be lost. 

In the past, I've blogged about similar options, but the OCR functionality of Google Keep is at a "whole 'nother level" (sorry, completely unrelated but couldn't resist), making this a really viable tool. Google Keep is free, and available on both Android and iOS.

Thanks Ryanne, and happy therapy all!







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