I was cleaning my desk the other day, and I came across some notes I’ve taken in my undergraduate days. I remember after I finished those courses, I wanted to compile these into my computer. “What if I lose these notebooks?” I thought, “what if I need to tutor in the future?”
This is why I was excited when I found out about Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Mobile technology develop so quickly and OCR is relatively common in mobile devices now. OCR is the process of converting a picture of texts into a document that you can store as text data and edit. It is particularly useful in a mobile device as you can capture images anytime, and convert them into editable documents anywhere. This technology has been seen in a variety of apps, including Microsoft Office Lens, Adobe Scan, and PhotoMath. While most of the apps that utilize this technology help us turn pictures of text, graphs and tables into texts documents, apps such as PhotoMath use the technology to turn pictures of math equations into machine-readable texts, then perform analysis and calculations on the equations to provide a solution.
I think we can expand its use to explore its full potential in education. One way I see it being useful is to provide accessibility for students with learning disabilities, visual impairments, or just different learning preferences. Textbooks, whiteboards and notes can be scanned into texts, which can be read by screen readers directly on students’ phones. I myself am a auditory learner, and whenever I read large amounts of texts, I always wished someone could read it out for me. It can also help expand digital libraries from physical prints, expanding more resources to learners remotely. It can even help educators simplify grading process.
There are of course, some limitations with the current OCR technology. For example, for large documents, its conversion may not always be accurate, especially if the texts in the pictures are handwritten. Additionally, not all languages have full OCR support right now, and let’s not forget, in order for OCR to work at its best, the pictures have to be relatively high resolution. One other concern I have is, if OCR is ever used to convert sensitive information (such as student’s personal info), is the data storage and privacy always taken into consideration?
I still think it is quite a magical tool and can only get better. What do you think? What other uses do you see it being applied in?
Hi Jennie,
Even though my study habits are opposite to yours, I prefer reading and organizing text, but OCR has helped me a lot in my studies. The most obvious point is that there are now more and more hardware devices, such as mobile phones that come with OCR. Compared with before, when we need to download software, it lowers the entry barrier. I can quickly take a picture and organize the information on it. In addition, although English is my academic learning language, it is not my first language after all. OCR has helped me a lot in quick word selection and translation. Secondly, I really like using my tablet to take notes and organize my thoughts. OCR saves me a lot of time by helping me convert handwritten text into text (when I need to submit a copy or assignment). But in these processes, it is inevitable to find that even though the recognition accuracy of OCR is constantly improving, there are still some areas that can be improved. Perhaps the current technology is not enough to support it but I always looking forward it happening. For example, recognizing text in different languages in one piece of work can be a challenge because each language has its own peculiarities and fonts. There is also the correct identification of formatting elements such as tables, columns, font size or text alignment. I am wondering whether OCR will also develop better as AR technology develops.
P.S., I think we were assigned to the same topic with the A2 task. I am looking forward to the discussion and cooperation with you in the future!
Sorry I messed up group members but still looking forward our discussions 🙂
Hi Jennie,
Great find! OCR definitely touches our daily and professional lives. This can help us decipher those hard to read writing ????
I first came across this when a student of mine was taking a picture of my board. He then showed me that my notes can be turned into PDF and that he can edit later on. I think this changes the way we approach note taking. It’s definitely expedited. However, I wonder how proponents of note taking would react to this. How could we take existing note taking strategies and incorporate tech?
With my current job, I have to work with people with varying skill sets with working with computers. My company relies on Microsoft Word track changes whenever we have to edit an instructional manual with a Subject Matter Expert (SME). Some SMEs are hesitant to do this and opt to write their notes on paper. OCR can definitely help my team and I transfer these handwritten notes faster.
I saw this post and was very intrigued by it. I use these OCRs reasonably often in my work (by digiting hard copies of faxes or printed memos to add to tasks to remind myself of later) and also in my daily life. There are a few I was thinking of that help translate languages I come across but don’t know (particularly Korean products when shopping). I am impressed by how far the technology has gotten, where it can see the foreign text, read and translate it, and then overlay it in the view from the camera and almost use the same font and size. I am curious if this technology will become a mass input tool, where several pages of printouts could be scanned into text.