Hi Sue and All, 



When I was a student, I was given Dragon as part of my DSA, and I did indeed use it as described - listening to the lecture again through one earbud, while wearing the Dragon headset and then dictating what I wanted to extract from the audio.  As a strategy it worked reasonably well and did help me fix the information in my mind a lot more clearly by effectively hearing the lecturer repeat the entire session as well as by covering the main points again myself during the dictation.  



There were down-sides:  when I got tired I tended to repeat verbatim rather than making actual notes and the resulting material was therefore neither as compact nor as useful as it might have been.    The process took a long time, because listening to the audio replay was at the same pace as the delivery of the lecture, with my part added on to that.  My experience was that an hour of lecture equalled roughly an hour and a half of listening/dictating + correcting (my errors and Dragon's misunderstandings).   That's where study skills support is important: to ensure that the student knows how to make effective notes, rather than just creating a lot of notes.



Alternatives?   Someone else mentioned Audio Notetaker: I'd go for that, along with Dragon to enable the student to dictate their own thoughts into the notes column alongside the audio captured in the lecture.  It offers the benefits of hearing the material again (as the student removes irrelevant parts from their working copy), gives them something solid to refer back to whenever they need to refresh their understanding, and the process should not take vast chunks of their time to do (assuming that the student receives effective training in how to use their DSA kit).



I can see when paying for someone else to transcribe could be helpful, and even essential for some students, however my concern is that some students might never look back at the resulting document again, which would not assist them to engage any better with the lecture material; obviously this would not be the same in all cases, but I'm just raising it as a potential concern. 



Since I have problems with physical grip and dexterity I haven't tried capturing an entire lecture with a Livescribe pen, but that looks like it might offer similar benefits.  



Regards

K



-----Original Message-----

From: Discussion list for disabled students and their support staff. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Susan Smith

Sent: 06 January 2016 16:59

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Transcribing interviews using Dragon Naturally Speaking



Dear all,

I fairly regularly get asked if it is possible to use Dragon Naturally Speaking to transcribe recorded interviews.  Nuance provide information about this on their website (http://www.nuance.co.uk/for-individuals/by-industry/education-solutions/transcribing-interview/index.htm) suggesting that the only way to do it is to listen to the interview on headphones then repeat it back to Dragon in the voice it has been set up to recognise.  I have suggested this to a few students but none have ever come back to let me know how they got on with it. 



So I was just wondering if anyone has any experience of this they could share.  Alternatively (long shot) does anyone have any other suggestions to make transcribing interviews easier.  The current student who is asking has dyspraxia and can only hold a couple of words in her mind at a time hence making the process rather laborious.



thanks

Sue



Sue Smith, Learning Support Officer (Disability and Dyslexia) Libraries and Learning Innovation Leeds Beckett University, Room LSB405, Sheila Silver Library, City Campus, Leeds LS1 3ES, United Kingdom Room JG G19b, James Graham Building, Headingley Campus , Leeds LS6 3HF, United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)113 812 3287 | Email: [log in to unmask]