Edutech strategy is a new era for schools

At the beginning of April, the U.K. government unveiled their Education Technology strategy at the Schools and Academies Show in London. The new Government strategy aims to transform the use of technology in education to reduce teacher workload, boost student outcomes, and help reveal the potential for those with special educational requirements and disabilities. Scanning Pens has been working towards these goals since our founding and we couldn’t be more pleased to learn that the Government has national plans to address such important issues in education.

One of the key challenges that the strategy hopes to address is promoting the use of innovative assistive technology to support SEND students. Finding the best technology that suits the individual’s needs is a continue problem SENCos face and the Government aims to address this.

Damian Hinds, the U.K. Secretary of State for Education, stated:

“This strategy is just the first step in making sure the education sector is able to take advantage of all of the opportunities available through EdTech. “

“Technology is an enabler and an enhancer. For too long in education, technology has been seen as something that adds to a teacher’s workload rather than helps to ease.”

The Education Technology strategy will be working in collaboration with organisations throughout the country to ensure they meet the needs of teachers. One such collaboration is with the British Education Suppliers Association (BESA), where schools can receive help with identifying the right product for their students through LendED, a free online service designed to aid schools in finding and purchasing educational technology.

Scanning Pens technology can be found on the LendED portal as well as our own sites where schools can sign up for free 30 day trials of any of our products. The ExamReader was recently commended at Bett after proving to be a vital support for students sitting their exams. The user-friendly text-to-speech scanning pen helps students build confidence and literary independence by helping them with their reading comprehension. The ExamReader has shown time and time again that it not only improves student attainment rates, but saves schools time and money by promoting student reading independence.

Our technology addresses many of the Governments new strategies while saving schools money. Visit www.examreader.com to learn more about the ExamReader

 

South West Export Champs

We’re proudly announcing that Scanning Pens has been selected as one of the first Export Champions of south-west England. This community is designed to help U.K based businesses network and build their companies. We’re excited to have the opportunity to further ensure our assistive technology reaches the people who need it most, no matter where in the world they are. At this year’s Bett Awards we won the Exporter of the Year award, a perfect example of the reach and need of our support. The ExamReader was recently highly commended in the Digital Devices category for the same event after three years of being on the market. The pen continues to receive acknowledgement for its vital exam support. Its convenient user-friendly design has been adopted worldwide by thousands of schools and continues to be a remarkable alternative to a human reader. Jack Churchill, Scanning Pens’ CEO and Co-Founder, stated recently “We at Scanning Pens strive to break down the barriers around dyslexia and reading languages throughout the world. There are millions of people that need help with their reading, whether they’re learning a new language or struggle with reading difficulties. We hope that someday anyone and everyone will have access to the tools they need to develop their confidence and reading ability.” We can’t wait to see what the future holds for Scanning Pens and hearing about all the success our technology brings to our users.

Telling Stories – how a young reader masked his difficulties in my class

in

One of my previous students, let’s call him Stuart, loved telling stories. His imagination was fantastic, his language was rich, and he could tell me how people were feeling and what their motivations were without pausing for breath. In fact, he had a back story for everything. “You see”, he would say with eyes sparkling, “the reason that she is so sad, is because her auntie is on holiday, and she always makes the dinner, so mum has to cook, and she burns everything.” Stuart could make all the correct connections with good reasoning and flights of fantasy. He was in his element when describing and sharing ideas and looking at the pictures in his reading book.

I soon realised that Stuart was always chatting, and mostly avoiding getting to the business of reading aloud. During paired reading time he would look at the pictures, skip through the text, take a reasonably good guess at what was happening, and then, he would start talking as fast as he could.

The dynamic changed from enjoyment to frustration as soon as I started to unpick what he was doing. I pointed to the text and said, “Okay, let’s start with this line here and use a piece of paper to hide the words underneath.”  His reaction was to fidget and squirm. Then, when I hid the picture, Stuart ran out of the room. 

By the age of seven, Stuart had already constructed coping strategies to avoid reading, which were very effective. He was praised for his imagination and enthusiasm; he could explain what was happening by looking at the pictures and guessing the content. He could charm anyone into a conversation that would last for the whole of his paired reading time. At home his love of stories was supported with audio books. He was confident with the content of the whole class reading book because he had already listened to it at home and he could put his extensive vocabulary to good use.

As time went on Stuart developed a bladder problem. His mum had told us, “If he asks, he really needs to go!” Toilet breaks were frequent and often coincided with the challenge of reading.

I wonder if this story sounds familiar to you. If so, this is my advice. Keep sharing reading time and allow stories to be shared and imaginative journeys to happen. Make some notes about any avoidance tactics that you have observed.  Keep a close eye on self-esteem. This can be a time when self-defeating behaviours emerge, like negative self talk, hiding, perfectionism, quitting half way through a task, and aggression.

How can we help children like Stuart? Share what you are seeing with friends and professionals. Have you all noticed the same patterns of avoidance? A Google search for visual stress disorders will give you some indicators about how some people struggle to see printed words. You could try asking Stuart to compare sound patterns with letter patterns to see if he is making the connection between the letter and the sound.

For example,

-a as in apple           - o as in orange        - i as in ink         - u as in umbrella           - e as in egg

These short vowel sounds are important building blocks and may give you a clue as to whether Stuart has processed these properly or at all.

Try to keep learning activities fun for Stuart and ask for some advice from the school SENCo. We don’t want him to lose his self-esteem or confidence. He already delights in using language verbally. Continue to encourage him and consider using resources like cards that match pictures and sounds like Letterland Reading Flashcards and Letterland Phonics Touch and Spell Flashcards. I have had lots of success with these cards (and they are not expensive).

At a later stage, or if you can’t spare the time to make these smaller changes, you may want to investigate assistive technology like the user-friendly, discreet, Scanning Pens. They scan text and read individual words or sections aloud or through personal headphones.

The important thing is to recognise that Stuart has a reading difficulty, but that he can be helped. We don’t want his avoidance strategies to escalate or become a barrier to his learning. But we also don’t want to stifle his confidence and creativity. Keep your communication with him positive and start each learning episode by celebrating his strengths. You may have experienced a student just like him.

The ExamReader highly commended in the Digital Devices category at the Bett 2019 Awards

The ExamReader was recently highly commended in the Digital Devices category at the Bett 2019 Awards after over three years of being on the market. The pen has been continuously optimised and updated and this accolade is just a confirmation of Scanning Pens’ hard work.  

The Bett awards, produced in association with Besa, are considered the leading global education technology awards. Having UK Education Minister Damian Hinds attend the ceremony reinforces the respect this accolade has.

The ExamReader is a user-friendly scanner that reads printed text aloud. It’s the perfect replacement for a human reader, helping build the confidence and independence of any student. Scanning Pens are working hard to break down the barriers in exams and around dyslexia and other reading difficulties so that students are able to reach their full potential.

At a recent conference Jack Churchill, the CEO & Co-founder of Scanning Pens, highlighted the importance of dyslexia assessments and exam accommodations to show the depth of each students’ knowledge.

He said “The point of exams is to ensure students are test on their knowledge of a given subject, not their ability to read. Assistive Technology like the ReaderPen and ExamReader can enable students to read exam questions themselves which develops independent and confident people fit for work”

Throughout 2019 Scanning Pens will continue to push against the barriers people face in their exams, with huge changes coming to the ExamReader soon.