OCR on Google Docs

While not an official feature, Google Docs is busy adding great stuff to their offerings. Lifehacker share this morning that Google Docs is adding OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to their list of features. Again, this is not a an official offering, but still in the test stages. I tried two different photos (they have to be in .jpg, .png, or .gif) and one worked and one didn't. So it's still has some work, but this is exciting news for accessibility!!!! Having a free OCR option would open so many doors for out students. You can try out the demo here:

Google Doc OCR

Hopefully if it's gets a good response, it will become a feature much quicker!!

Patrick

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Google Docs Updates

Google has slowly been adding features to Google Docs. One of the best features is the integration of translation services. When I first read about it there were 42 languages, recently they've added up to 51 languages. It's really so easy to use, and adds a great amount of functionality to Google Docs. This feature would be really useful for classrooms where English is not the primary language language spoken at home.

They've also added a readability feature to Google Docs. If you go to tools and select word count you get a nice pop up. It includes a basic count of words, characters, etc... as well as Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, & Automated Readbility Index. While I've not used this feature, it does seem really useful. Here's an example of what the pop up looks like:


Thanks to Robert Byrne over at Freetech4teachers for these tips!

Patrick

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Back to School....

So remember that post a few months ago, that post where I said I was feeling ready for the year, how I felt I was prepared...I was wrong. I was totally unprepared for this year. I had plans, I was all set things were going well, it was a false sense of security. I've come home exhausted and had absolutely no motivation to get ready for the next day, let alone blog. I have some great ideas for posts, I even started some drafts, but my blogging time (usually after my wife goes to bed) has been interrupted by something important, sleep. Basically in the first 3 weeks of school a student of mine has had some significant changes, which has changed the entire room, and I've lost an instructional assistant for an undetermined length of time to a freak classroom accident (she tripped over the trampoline and broke her wrist). So things have been strange, between having a sub for the injured assistant, and a sub to just help out, it's been strange.

On the positive sign, things are looking up! I think that this week is the week to get back blogging! I've never intended to post everyday, but I had intended to at least put up something 3-4 times a week. So now I'll be getting back on track. I hope that you the reader continue to read, and also hope I haven't lost too many of you! Good luck to all of you starting a new year, and let's make it a good one!

Patrick

photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons: Kyle Kesselring

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