Educational Solutions
Speech recognition is gaining traction in the general education arena.
People of all abilities are using speech to interact with mainstream technology — computers, handheld devices, navigation systems, gaming consoles, and more — students need to be trained in using voice interfaces.
As a result, more and more intermediate, secondary schools and tertiary institutions are adopting speech recognition technology as a tool for their students. Dragon helps students boost productivity, prepare for tomorrow’s workforce, and prevent increasingly common repetitive stress injuries.
Dragon in Education is mainly used in:
- Assistive technology for students with physical and learning disabilities
- Remedial tool for improving the reading and writing skills of students of all abilities, but especially those with language-based learning disorders
- Part of business and computer curriculum at the intermediate and secondary school levels
- Productivity-enhancing tool for
- Teaching professionals
- Tertiary students
Students
It lets a student talk to a computer and watch their spoken words quickly appear in documents, emails or instant messages. It’s faster than typing and it never makes a spelling mistake. As a result, speech recognition tools can generate a new excitement for writing and learning for students who were previously unable to write or produce written work — especially those facing physical or learning challenges.
Tools like Dragon NaturallySpeaking can help students quickly and easily transfer ideas from their minds onto paper — a basic task that is often painful, or even impossible, for some students. When students can dictate their papers and examination responses to a computer, they’re more likely to exploit their full language capabilities.
A Valuable Tool for Teachers
Today’s teachers face an incredible workload. In addition to classroom teaching, many serve on one or more administrative committees and councils. Most are involved in separate weekly meetings for each student. Some perform curriculum coordination duties or are involved in coaching or after-school enrichment programs. All of them must communicate with students, parents and peers. And then there’s the evaluation of student work.
Teachers can receive hundreds of essays, reports, exams or homework assignments from students every week. Each paper requires timely review and detailed feedback. Dragon NaturallySpeaking provides a valuable tool for streamlining the assessment of student assignments. With Dragon, teachers can read and respond to students’ essays quickly and easily. They can add more comments and detailed notes because they’re not constrained by time-consuming hand-written feedback - not to mention poor penmanship.
By using Dragon with a wireless headset, teachers reviewing assignments and providing dictated feedback are no longer tied so closely to the desk and computer. They can move around as they dictate notes to students or sit back and relax as they add comments to papers.
When it comes to using speech recognition as a teaching and administrative tool, the sky is the limit. Innovative teachers continue to find new, useful applications for speech recognition technology that benefit both their students and themselves.
How is Dragon being deployed in Education today?
• Installed on laptop computers, Dragon can be used by students -and teachers- at home as well as in multiple classroom locations throughout the school day
• On PCs or Macs. Schools that have standardized on Apple Macintosh computers can still take advantage of Dragon’s industry-leading speech recognition technology. MacSpeech Dictate uses Nuance’s world-renowned Dragon speech recognition engine. Dragon is the brains and the brawn behind MacSpeech Dictate’s proven accuracy.
• In mainstream classrooms. Dragon can be installed on one or more computers in traditional or inclusion classroom setting for use by students of all abilities, including those on Individual Education Plans.
• In Special Education or Life Skills classrooms. Dragon can be used by full-time life skills or special education students who come for individualized help over the course of the school day.
• In computer labs. Dragon can be installed on all computers in a secondary school or tertiary institute classroom or computer application labs as a resource for all who need it.