There are learners in classrooms everywhere who cannot express themselves effectively in writing. For some of these learners, voice recognition software has provided an alternative “keyboard” that has made writing possible. Unfortunately, voice recognition is not a magic bullet. In my experience, complete success with voice recognition is rare among school age children, including learners at the secondary level.
I have not seen research on the subject, but I believe that immature voices, challenges with thought processing, articulation issues, and inadequate support by teachers/teaching assistants are critical factors that mitigate against success. THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT THERE IS A FREE ALTERNATIVE that may be effective for anyone who has access to Microsoft Word. This offers learners a means of showing what they know and of telling their stories without writing and without using voice recognition software.
Voice Comment is a “hidden” feature of Microsoft Word that I believe teachers and parents everywhere need to be aware of, so they can make it available to the learners they support. With this feature, a digital recording can be inserted easily into any Word document. The recording shows up on the page as an audio icon. A teacher, parent, or friend can listen to what has been recorded simply by double-clicking on the icon.
[For learners who face challenges with both reading and writing, I suggest combining the use of Voice Comments with WordTalk, the free add-on that turns MS Word into a talking word processor, complete with an extremely helpful talking spell checker. For more information about this, please visit UDL4ALL, a wiki where I have collected resources to support the installation and use of WordTalk.]
Here’s what the Voice Comment icon looks like on the “Quick Access” toolbar in Word 2007.
To place the icon on the toolbar, you must follow the steps shown below. (To download instructions for MS Word 2003, click HERE.)
1. Open the drop-down ‘Customize Quick Access Toolbar’ menu which is found to the right of the toolbar, and select ‘More Commands’
2. In the dialog box that opens, click open the drop-down menu under ‘Popular Commands’ and select ‘All Commands’, as shown below.
3. Scroll down to ‘Voice Comment’, select it, and click on the ‘Add’ button to add the icon to the Quick Access toolbar.
