This past week I found out that I have to have surgery on my dominate elbow/wrist. This means I need to work ahead and research as many tools to help support me professionally and academically to get me over the 4 1/2 week restriction. In a previous blog I shared the various features of Screen Cast O Matic. (See Blog) As the name implies it records voice recordings as you share your screen and a yellow cursor guides the viewer through the presentation. While this is my go to for flipped, blended and communication tool for my classroom, I am going to need something that will type for me during my recovery.
My first step in any research is to find out what is FREE reliable and easy to use with good reviews.
- Google Voice Typing in Google Chrome Google has the best reviews I could find for accuracy (some say up to 95% ). This can be used for my emails, Google Docs/Slides/Sheets to help with my lecture outlines, it has auto saving and can be used from any computer in the world. Best of all it is FREE. To use for gmail: click on more tools at the top of your email (the three dots), select extensions, email detection (at the bottom of the list) add to Chrome and it automatically adds a microphone icon to your gmail tools.(Note: if the microphone does not automatically appear restart your computer…..that should solve the issue) For other Google applications you simply go to tools and select voice typing from your drop down menu. All dictations in Google must have specific commands for punctuation.
My plan will be to use voice typing features in Google, then paste them in my Blog and Populi (our online classroom). Maybe this week I should do a test run restricting my right arm to see what challenges I might face before this is my reality. Today, I am super grateful for this technology.
aksoldotnaedtech 
Sorry to hear about your surgery, Katie! That will certainly make things challenging, but I love that you immediately went to work to find a technology that can help you during your recovery. One of the debates we have as a staff at our school is whether or not a computer typing class is necessary for our students. You post got me thinking that maybe it isn’t as necessary as I once thought for students to learn to type. Perhaps the next thing will be for kids to dictate their thoughts while the computer (or whatever futuristic tool we have) types away for them.
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Technology has a way of rescuing us by throwing us a life raft when we lost our ability to swim. Many of my students with learning disabilities use the Text-to-Speech option on Google Chrome because they have amazing ideas but get bogged down with spelling when they try to write them out on paper. I, for one, have a great appreciation for this tool because it makes reading their ideas so much easier. Dictation tools help these students see past their disabilities and help them produce high-quality work. This is such a confidence boost for the kids.
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This is week three. You are ahead of the others, but as you said, you are working ahead. Good luck with the surgery. Google certainly is trying to provide as much as it can for free. Nice post.
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This is the most challenging because I can type faster than google can keep up with my speech, but it is super helpful. I am teaching my mother how to use this as well, she is Puerto Rican and wants to type but her English is poor…………Google does not do well with accents.
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Hi Katie, I wish you a speedy rehab process, I liked the analogy Galina shared above, it reminds me of similar parallel that Steve Jobs shared about computers are like bicycles for the mind…they can amplify a humans abilities. Based on your blog output you seem to be fairing quite nicely with a broken wing:) Seriously though I am constantly amazed at the quality and quantity of the Google tool set. I just discovered this one today: https://artsandculture.google.com. Or this new program “Grow with Google” sponsored by google where they partner with local libraries and outreach organizations by sending “Googlers” to help teach new skills in communities all over the US. https://grow.google Thanks for highlighting the Google talk to text feature aka “dictation”, Apple has a similar feature introduced in 2011 and the “machine learning” has gotten better but maybe not so much for languages other than english. This will change as the algorithms get better for “Natural Speech” in more languages.
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