Claire Dowling asked:
> Has anyone heard of a student using a laptop in lectures
> with voice recognition software loaded on it as a method of recording
> information & turning it into note format ? The idea being that the voice
> will be turned into text, cutting out the need for note taking. One of our
> students is interested in using this as they say they know of someone at
> another institution who is doing this.
Interesting. Ask for their details, they are unlikley to match the
above requirement. There are digital, solid state portable recorders
available now linked to speech input but only for the system user.
They'll record anything, but the system wont be able to interpret
other than a "trained" voice.
However we have approached the
> manufactures and it appears that the software available still needs an
> individual voice file made for each voice that is recorded.
This is true and would require each lecturer to devote several hours
to train the system- itself a non-starter. Without this, even under
good acoustic conditions the error rate would be far too high. But
even if one agreed to train, as lecture theatres vary acoustically, as
do noise levels, and as lecturers often mumble, walk up and down
and face the board, the signal would be far too poor to achieve
anything at all.
I agree with Paul Proctor, a keyboard solution like the AlphaSmart
has much more going for it. You did not say what the disability
was. This wont change any of the above, but it would affect how
viable, or worthwhile, it was for the student to adopt speech input
for personal use.
Dave Laycock
Head of CCPD
Computer Centre for People with Disabilities
University of Westminster
72 Great Portland Street
London W1N 5AL
tel. 0171-911-5161
fax. 0171-911-5162
WWW home page: http://www.wmin.ac.uk/ccpd/
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