Dear ANNETTE,
First of all, please note that I am biased towards Dragon products,
especially NaturallySpeaking Preferred UK (3.01). Power Secretary is also a
Dragon product, but for discrete rather than continuous speech (more like
DragonDictate, but for Mac). I think it important for you to consider your
proposed target groups very carefully. I would suggest that there may well
be MANY more users interested in using such a setup who have disabilities
other than visual impairments & learning difficulties. 

If any prosective users are in pain because of repetitive strain problems
control over the entire desktop by voice will also be important. As I
responded to an earlier post, my RSI requires me to use DragonDictate for
Windows. Once I had tried NatSpeaking I was conquered. I therefore use
"NaturallySpeaking Professional which covers all of my needs (fast
dictation and mouse movement and keyboarding via voice). This package
includes both DragonDictate 3.02 UK and NatSpeaking Prof. UK 3.01." The new
NaturallySpeaking Mobile (esp. improvements shipping in October 1998)allows
users to record  speech which can be ported on removable memory cards and,
in the 10/98 version, transcribed at a speed faster than the time taken to
record it. Please see: 

DDictate, NatSpeaking (other than Standard version) are excellent for
multiple users. I'm not sure about Power Secretary but VV98 should also be
OK. Users with visual impairments need equipment and software which can be
used successfully with Jaws, and the like. I am nowhere near to being an
expert in any of these areas. With the many technological changes (& some
improvements)    ;^)
expected shortly, however, it's becoming ever more difficult to give
opinions on hard/soft ware! Should the computers have Zip drives or
LS-120Mb Superdisks, memory card adapters, to make it easier to transport
data, speech files...? Will that mean that we therefore need to consider
one of these options as necessary for the computers purchased with the DSA
for home use?

I recommend that, in addition to the information you receive from this
forum, you (or I as a mail list member) bring this question before the
voice-users list & the spk2wrt mailing list. Speak2Write, BTW, "is a
moderated e-mail discussion forum for students, teachers, or other adults
who are interested in the use of speech  recognition technology for
themselves or for students with disabilities that affect their development
and production of written language.")

Sorry to add more questions to yours. I would also like to read other
opinions re outfitting such a room.


Regards,

Celia


At 10:18 17/09/98 BST, you wrote:
>We are currently setting up a facility for students in our new 
>library to provide equipment and a room for students for whom the 
>standard library equipment is inadequate.  We will have a PC, a MAC 
>and scanners for each.  What I'd like advice on is software.  It had 
SNIP
Welfare & Information Officer, King's College London, Macadam Bldng,
London WC2R 2LS Tel: 0171 873 2530   Fax: 0171 873 2754
Produced using voice activated/recognition software.


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