ATU685 – ScanMarker Pro with Brian Friedlander

Hi, this is Brian Friedlander and I’m an Assistive Technology Consultant in New Jersey. My company name is AssistiveTek, LLC, and this is your Assistive Technology update.

Hello and welcome to your Assistive Technology update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads of beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 685 of Assistive Technology Update, it is scheduled to be released on July 12th, 2024. On today’s show we’re lucky enough to be joined by Brian Friedlander and he’s here to tell us all about the Scanmarker Pro. We’re also joined by Amy Berry with Bridging Apps with an app worth mentioning. So let’s go ahead and get on with the show.

Folks, we cannot thank you enough for giving us a listen here at Assistive Technology Update. Without you, we would not have been around for coming up on getting pretty darn close that 700 episode mark. But did you know that this is not the only podcast that we have? You can also check out our sister show, Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions. This show comes out once a month and it features panelists, Elvis Smith, Brian Norton, and myself as we try to answer the questions that are plaguing your mind about assistive technology. We gather up all the questions we get during the month from emails, phone calls, and many other means, and then we do our best to answer them. But I got to tell you folks, believe it or not, we do not know everything. So we rely on our listeners a lot to reach out to us and give us some of those answers or maybe just talk about their personal experiences and things that have happened to them.

So if you’d like Assistive Technology Update, you may very well love Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions. Again, it’s Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions where you can get your questions about assistive technology answered. Or if you happen to have the answers to some of the questions asked on that show, please, please, please do reach out and let us know so that we can help the community with the answers that they so desperately seek. Much like Assistive Technology Update, you can find Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions wherever you prefer to get your podcast. And as always listeners, thank you for listening. Next up on the show, please join me in welcoming back Amy Berry from Bridging Apps with an app worth mentioning.

This is Amy Berry with Bridging Apps, and this is an app worth mentioning. This week’s featured app is called Hoopla. Hoopla’s a free app that allows you to sign-in using your local library card and then instantly borrow music, movies, audiobooks, and more. When you create an account by signing in with your library card, you’re then eligible to borrow up to five items per month. When your time is up with an item, it automatically returns to the library, so no more forgetting to return something and building up late fees. The app is very simple to use. From the My Hoopla page, you can see the items you currently have checked out, your recently returned items, and how many titles you are eligible to borrow for the month. To check out a new title, simply choose the area that you want to explore, there is video, music, or books.

Within the books, you can choose audiobooks, ebooks, or comics. While you’re looking around, you can click on the heart icon to save titles that you are interested in borrowing. These are saved in your favorites on the My Hoopla page. When you find the item in the format you want to borrow, click on borrow and it’s yours. You can then choose download to your device so that you can listen and/or watch the item offline. This is really great if you have a child using it with an iPad that does not have cellular service. The Hoopla app could be very beneficial for those who are blind or visually impaired but still want to enjoy a great book, and they’re read by narrators who use inflection and emotions. Or for children and adults with dyslexia who want to be able to experience an adventure without the stress and fatigue that often come with reading. Hoopla is available for free at the iTunes Store and the Google Play Store, and it’s compatible with iOS and Android devices. For more information on this app and others like it, visit bridgingapps.org.

Listeners, today we welcome Brian Friedlander. And he’s here to tell us all about the Scanmarker Pro, and we cannot wait to learn all about it and how it can help individuals with disabilities. Brian, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Josh. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Yeah. I am excited to get into talking about the tech, but before we do that, could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

Sure. So for the last 25 years, I have been a professor of education and taught courses in assistive tech and special education. I’m also a licensed psychologist, worked in the schools. And for the last 30 some odd years I’ve been doing assistive technology consulting to the public schools and families, helping them evaluate the needs of students and to find the appropriate assistive technology so that they can do their best in their classrooms or in their workplace.

Nice. Very nice. Well, the main reason that we had you on here today was to talk about the Scanmarker and the Scanmarker Pro. I guess let’s just kind of start off with what is it?

So Scanmarker Pro is it a standalone personal and very small reading, I’ll say reading pen, almost like a highlighter. So students can turn it on and just scan the text with it and be able to listen to Scanmarker Pro read it aloud. It supports Bluetooth, so students can use their Apple earbuds or they can use a Bluetooth headset [inaudible 00:06:42] so listen to the text very discreetly and they can also set the speed of the text that’s being read. So it’s a great device. And it’s really a very empowering tool in the classroom for students that need to read books, read worksheets, and also to take tests independently as well. So we see it being used in a lot of different environments.

Nice. So I guess I want to start with the last thing you said there so I can use it to take tests. So I assume that everything’s, I want to say housed on the device. I’m not able to get any extra information besides having the information read to me if I’m using it for a test. Is that correct?

That is correct. The only thing is we actually have two different model for schools that we do have an examination model of the pen so that it just removes the dictionary feature that’s important, but everything is on the device. The device itself has its own speaker, so again, in a classroom you don’t necessarily have to use a Bluetooth headset or earbuds to listen to the test because there is a speaker on board.

Nice. And, Brian, you mentioned that there’s kind of a dictionary feature if from not using that kind of exam one, how does that help and how does that work?

So students can actually scan, let’s say a line of text and say they come across the word like the word trash and they don’t know the meaning of it, they can just select it with their finger. The other thing too is it’s got a very really nice LED touch screen that’s really bright, so it’s direct select. So to move through the menus, you just basically select. So you can then select the word and then hit dictionary, and then it will read the dictionary entry out loud, which is great. So again, the whole idea is to work on students increasing their vocabulary development and also increasing their comprehension by being able to listen to the definition being read aloud.

Oh, that’s awesome. And then as I’m scanning texts, because we mentioned worksheets, books, all those kinds of things, can I save the information that I scan on there?

Yeah. So we have a feature that lets you index and save the text. We also have two different modes. We have an append mode, so students can just take the scanner and keep scanning the text and can store a page, two pages.

Nice.

And then they can index it and save it. And then we have another mode that might be more appropriate for, let’s say when you’re taking an exam so that you scan the first question, you listen to it, you answer the question, and then the next time you scan it basically deletes question one and then allows you to scan question two. So we have two different modes, which works really well depending upon what your task is. We also have another mode where students can save the text and they go into the export feed function of the pen. They can basically scan whatever text, so maybe they wanted to use it to pull out notes for an exam in a textbook. They can go into the export mode, scan the text they want, and then they can plug the device in with the supplied cable. And then the Scanmark Pro mounts as a hard drive and they can pull that TXT file off the device and then use it in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and then they can basically reuse that text as they see fit.

Nice. That’s really nice. As far as the kind of vocal feedback, so I scan something, have it read back to me, can I make adjustments to that voice faster, slower, or different tones or anything like that? I guess my question is what kind of adjustments can I make to that?

The text to speech is kind of hardwired into the device, so you can’t change it. It comes from the factory that way. But you can change the speed in which it’s [inaudible 00:11:00] the text. The other function which is really very popular, we just got back from a TESOL conference. These were teachers who are teaching students where English is not their primary language, and we can do on-the-fly translation into over 110 different languages so that students can scan in English and then listen to the text being read to them with the native text-to-speech engine, let’s say in Portuguese, Hebrew, Arabic, French. So we support five languages on the device without connectivity to Wi-Fi. And then if the student connects it to a Wi-Fi network, we support over 110 different languages.

Wow, that’s really cool. And I didn’t even know that it was available to do that. That’s great. So I just scan it as I normally would, and instead of just having it kind of read straight back to me, I can actually just change it to a different language and have it read back that way. That’s really awesome.

Correct. So the student would see the original text that you scan, let’s say in English, and then they can see it in their native language. And the students can go back and forth by just clicking on this little speech icon to listen to it in English and then if they want, they can listen to it again, whatever language they selected. We also have the same idea, but the speak function, so students can speak in English and listen back to the text being translated into, again, any of those 110 different languages. Which can be really helpful even for teachers who may want to, again, want to communicate with their students and maybe they don’t speak Portuguese, they can say it in English and the device will read it back to them in Portuguese so the student can maybe better understand what’s being communicated.

Oh, that’s great. And I mean, it’s great that it can read the questions on the test, but if I can’t understand the teacher’s instructions, then that’s great that it gives you that extra kind of tool to really just really help with that comprehension and be able to participate in class a whole lot more effectively.

And if you’re a student that has an accommodation where you can record audio, record the lecture, we also support just recording. And what happens is it stores the recording as an MP3 file, and again, the student can then plug the device into any computer, Chromebook, Mac, PC, and then be able to access the mp-III file. So if they wanted to listen to it again or if they wanted to take that file and then transcribe it using any one of the various AI transcription services, they could do that as well. And we also have for a student that may be using it for that purpose, we also have a slot for a micro SD so they can store many more files on the device than comes standard with it.

That’s awesome. That is awesome. Brian, I know we kind of talked a little bit about some different kinds of models. I guess can you give me an overview of maybe the different models of Scanmarker and maybe some of the differences between them?

Okay. So we’ve been talking about Scanmarker Pro, which was just released around January. The previous model was called Scanmarker Reader, which is another scanning technology except Scanmarker Reader was dependent upon connecting it to a device. So we’re using the scanner as an input device into a Mac, a PC, an Android phone, an iPad, and we had a web-based app and using Bluetooth technology, students could scan the text into either the application or the web-based app. The advantage of that is if you have students where the size of the font is important and you really want to customize the text-to-speech engine and the speed, that’s a great solution. But a lot of teachers really, they ask us, ‘Can we have a standalone tool that students can access very quickly?” There was a little bit of set up with Scanmarker Reader, but again, if you connected to a computer, you have very quick access to all those different 110 languages we spoke about.

So we have Scanmarker Reader, which connects to, I’ll say display or computer or an iPhone or Android phone. And then we have Scanmarker Pro, which is basically the standalone reading pen. So those are basically the two devices. And then we just recently released the Scanmarker Pro examination model, which basically it has all the functionality except it removes the dictionary, which in some states that requirement is not to have that support. So we have that model as well. So those are the basic three models. They all work pretty much the same, but again, the Scanmarker Pro is great because it’s just like you turn it on and the student’s ready to use it and has that support. I mean, it really is the safety net for students and allows them to be more independent, especially for students that may have in their IEP an accommodation where they take the test, maybe in a less distracting environment, they maybe get extra [inaudible 00:16:29] but they might also have a human reader. So this could remove that and make them more independent because as they go through the school system, more and more of these kinds of tools are going to be available to them. And a lot of even colleges are removing human readers from the testing environment. So again, it allows students to be very independent, and it also decreases frustration because student knows that they have a fallback, there’s a safety net for them.

Oh, most definitely. And I know sometimes finding those assistants to be able to read the test isn’t something that’s always readily available. Sometimes there’s not someone available, so you have to work within them. Especially once you get to the post-secondary world. I know that can be a big challenge. And I think you hit the nail on the head of just being able to be independent. Depending on my disability, there could be more than maybe just a learning disability there, so having someone looking over my shoulder, reading everything to me could be just another barrier to success. So being able to do that all independently is great, and just hopefully something that’ll extend through the rest of life as being able to be independent with those things.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think too is that we don’t realize in my former career as a school psychologist, especially now, how many kids have tremendous anxiety about the school, school performance, testing. And so this could not only make them independent, but also reduce some of that anxiety as well. And in addition, we also ship Scanmarker Pro and Reader with basically a tracking ruler so for students difficulties with fine motor difficulties. It’s just a reading, almost like a reading window, but they’re able to put the scanner in between and it allows them to scan the text much more efficiently with that. So we provide that as well, which is a really nice tool. Because in the past I’ve used some of the previous models from other companies, and that was always an issue, especially for a lot of students that may have fine motor or motor difficulties, they had trouble basically scanning the line accurately. So this kind of keeps them and allows them to do it very accurately and very efficiently.

That’s awesome. You actually just answered my next question. Because I was going to ask just how precise you had to be or how you kind of keep it on the line and go all the way across. I mean, especially I think about big books and the binding and everything, so that’s great that that tool comes right in there, it’s not an extra add-on. Just to make it more accessible, like you said, for folks with any kind of motor impairment or even visual impairment or anything like that, it gives you a nice tool to be able to just use it much more effectively.

Yeah. And I have to say, using devices through the years, [inaudible 00:19:26] Quicktionary Pens and things like that. I mean, the OCR capabilities of this is really incredible in terms of basically has an Android operating system on board.

Oh, nice.

So it’s got a powerful operating system. It’s hard to believe how they can miniaturize these complete basically mini computer, but we do. And so the optical character recognition is very, very, very good and very accurate. And you can also scan pretty quickly. So again, if you have that dexterity, you can go through a page pretty quickly with tremendous accuracy.

Nice. That’s awesome. Brian, you’ve probably got a ton of these, but could you tell me a story about someone’s experience using the Scanmarker Pro and maybe how it made a difference in their education?

Yeah. So we’re collecting testimonials, but we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback about students with reading challenges. Again, even in the home use, we get reports parents saying that now their kids can do their homework independently, read pages of the books independently. So it’s really heartwarming to get this kind of positive feedback from kids who were struggling. And we’re also getting a lot of really good feedback from students who do not speak, English might not be their native tongue. And so we’re getting a lot of really great testimonials.

And also, like I said, I was at the New Jersey TESOL conference about a month ago, and when the teachers saw the ability, the translational abilities to go from English to one of 110 languages, they were just so excited because they realized what a powerful tool this will be in the classrooms that they can give to their students. And again, it’s supportability, it’s the accessibility of the tool, and even the user interface makes it really very accessible to students who might be struggling in their learning or, again, English may not be their primary speaking language. I mean, it’s really exciting to… I’ve been in this field for close to 40 years and it’s just so exciting to see how we can put these tools in the hands of students and how we’ve been able to miniaturize basically computers. So we can give tools like this to students with reading challenges.

Yeah. It makes such a big difference if I don’t have to go find a scanner and get it in to make software work on my computer or have some gigantic device or something that really makes me stand out. If I can use something that really doesn’t look that much different than what everyone else is using, blend in a little bit more and everyone doesn’t know what I’m kind of doing to do it. It gets rid of all that stigma and maybe that little bit of concern that I know some individuals may have. We all want to, I guess, be unique, but no one wants to stand out is kind of the way. So I love that, like you said, everything’s miniaturized and I can use this little tool to be able to fill this need.

Yeah. We’re seeing too that schools are, they’re not buying, I mean, in some cases they may be buying one for one particular student for their IEP. But we’re finding too that the whole idea of universal design for learning, schools are beginning to buy maybe five or 10 in a classroom. So any child could pull it out and listen to it. I mean, even someone like myself who I’ve done a lot of reading in my career, I started using something like Speechify on my iPhone. I mean, I got a magazine the other day, I took a picture of it, and now I’m listening to the text being read. So I mean, all of us are listening to podcasts and things like that. So, again, just for all the kids, it’s really a great tool. As we all listen to more and more information, it’s great that all kids can benefit and use a tool like this in the classroom.

Oh, for sure. And even if I don’t really have a print disability, sometimes just having that multimodal learning of being able to see it, read it and hear it all at the same time, I’m going to absorb it and understand it a little bit better so it can really help a whole lot of learners.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, for most of the work that I do is I consult, I do a assistive tech evaluation for schools and I work with families, but it’s really exciting to be working with Scanmarker Pro. I’ve been working with them for about a year, just giving them insights into the market. They’re an Israeli based company and trying to help them build the brand here in the United States. So it’s been really exciting to see this product come online and help as many students as we have already. So I mean, the future is really bright for these kinds of very portable, lightweight, accessible technologies to allow students the independence and the competence to access text.

Most definitely. Brian, if our listeners want to find out more about Scanmarker Pro, what’s a good way for them to do that?

So the best way is to go to ccanmarker.com and they can find out more information about that. And in the US if they’d like, maybe you could attach my email, it’s brian@assistivetek.com, and I’ll be more than happy. I do have my calendar online, so if any educators are interested or parents interested in a demo, they can have access to my calendar. We can schedule a demo over Zoom and this way give them an idea if this is a tool that can work with their students in their different environments.

Awesome. We will put links to both those down in the show notes. Well, Brian, thank you so much for coming on today and telling us all about the Scanmarker Pro and all the really great things that I had no idea that it could possibly do. So that’s really awesome. I love a day when I get to learn something, even though I do swear I prepare for these, but the whole translation thing and the whole just extra tool can really just help so many different learners with so many different diverse needs. So thanks again for coming on and telling us all about it.

Absolutely. It was a pleasure being on, Josh.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAproject. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or In TRAC. You can find out more about In TRAC at relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nicole Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show is produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners, or this host. This was your Assistive Technology Update, I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.