DES MOINES, Iowa — With nearly one thousand English language learning students, the Ottumwa Community School District has found a unique way to help with language translations. All you have to do is stick an ear bud in your ear.
Alex Quin is the CEO and co-founder of Timekettle, a device used to simultaneously translate conversations using ear buds. The company invested the product as a way to achieve natural translations.
"You need to just share the one earbud to someone and then you can just speak, the earbuds will automatically detect your sentence and a translate," Quin said.
This amazing technology translates 40 languages and 93 accents, making its way from China to be used in Ottumwa. Director of Special Programs at Ottumwa Schools Mike Stiemsma said the technology will help around 150 students to learn English.
"The earbuds were an idea that we had that we can put into student's ears. and it would translate in real time teacher's words into the native language for those students," Stiemsma said.
Ottumwa School's currently has a team of 15 English Language Learner teachers. They purchased 70 Timekettle earbuds for their students, being the first school in the country to use this technology on such a large scale.
"The relationship has been outstanding because we've been working on a school based way to provide the translation services," Stiemsma said.
With over 43 languages in Ottumwa being spoken a day, this tool is going to do a lot for the students.
The Timekettle's retail price is around $300, comparable to the price of Apple AirPods. The Timekettles have a feature that transcribes your conversation in a language you choose and sends that translation to your email, so you can refer back to it at a later time.