Dragon Dictation App Review Discussion
Dragon Dictation allows the user to dictate anything from emails, blogs, texts. you can post or save to your clipboard to be copied where you need it. Meant to be a time saving app.
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melissaayers
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tomwhyte1 8:30 am on October 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
App Title: Dragon Dictation
Publisher/Developer: Nuance Communications
Version: 2.0.23
Operation Analysis:
This powerful, yet free, application allows students with weak fine motor skills, cognitive delays, or inabilities at transferring thoughts effectively to paper, to easily write sentences, entire papers, or answer problem sets through speech-to-text; unfortunately. Furthermore, the app itself is easy to navigate with decent help/tutorial information, allows the information to be emailed, cut, copied, facebooked, and even tweeted. On the negative side, this app requires individuals to speak very clearly or else it misunderstands the spoken words, an issue with students who have speech difficulties
Pedagogical Analysis:
Dragon Dictation as mentioned previously, is a powerful app, in its ability to accommodate diverse learner needs for students at all age levels. As well, by allowing students to verbalize their thoughts, and provide a written record of these events, students can increase their understanding of a topic, facilitate higher order thinking, and if paired with appropriate assignments, can increase engagement/interaction, collaboration, creativity and problem solving.
Personally, I find it easier to talk my idea’s out loud, instead of staring at a blank piece of paper. Therefore, for individuals such as myself, this tool is an effective and quick way to explore and develop powerful written works.
jenbarker 6:28 pm on October 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Tom – I have have also spent some time trying to use Dragon Dictation. Although I agree with a lot of what you have said I found that the program made many mistakes, even when I or the children spoke slowly. I work with elementary students and when I have used it with them, they get frustrated when it doesn’t type what they have said. I know they have a paid version (which I’ve heard is a couple of hundred dollars) but apparently it is outstanding. I have a friend who did her entire Master’s Thesis paper using this.
My son is a great thinker but has written output delays so I have seriously considered buying the version of this app. It would allow his teacher’s to see that he does have great ideas and voice when it comes to telling stories.
Jonathan 9:04 pm on October 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Jen — I’ve been playing around with the iPads recently (we got a few) — and it just occurred to me that Siri is now built into the new iPads (version 3). This effectively replaces Dragon Dictation at least on the iOS devices. I found that Siri works quite effectively on the Apple Laptops as well now as well.
Just some thoughts. I think your son would definitely benefit from it. One thing that I’ve also experienced is that Siri works better with a slower voice. I’m sure you’ve noticed this with Dragon Dictation as well.
Perhaps a free Siri will save you some money.
teacherben 7:28 pm on October 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I once downloaded a copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking for my 2-finger typist stepdad. He stayed up all night trying to train it to recognize his South African accent to no avail and endless frustration. He read the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech about a thousand times. It was sort of comical listening to him shouting that speech at the top of his lungs, peppering it with profanity when it couldn’t understand him and made him say every other word over again… On the other hand, my much milder Ontario accent is easily picked up by the new Dragon plugin for my Android phone, although I hardly ever use it.
On the investment front, this has left opportunities for companies like ‘Keda Xunfei’ to specialize in voice recognition software for other languages (they make Chinese voice recognition software that is similar to Apple’s Siri.)
sophiabb 6:27 pm on October 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I’ve had a similar experience to that of your stepdad. I have a very distinctive Jamaican accent and tried Dragon Naturally Speaking a few years ago with limited success. I have been looking around for a voice recognition software for my daughter; she is dyslexic and is now in grade 8. Her verbal (oral) output is great but struggles to produce on paper. Her school uses Dragon Naturally Speaking. While her accent is more ‘Canadian’ I fear that her success will be limited. Yes, great investment opportunity here.
Sophia
Ranvir 9:54 pm on October 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
This is an interesting discussion and I will add my two pennies on the experience I have had using this app. I agree that it is a valuable tool for students to get their thoughts on paper quickly before they lose them, however, it’s important to say the words slowly and clearly for the app to not make too many mistakes. I have had lot of frustration with this app and found it easier to write rather than repeat the words multiple times and make corrections.
Anyways, I guess if you can learn how to use it well, it can become a valuable tool for capturing notes, doing homework and project work.
kstackhouse 4:56 am on October 3, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for the great points everyone. Yes, it will be interesting to see how Siri and other programs will impact this company. Hopefully as a business they see this competition and have begun planning on how they will maintain a competitive choice. Is there a version of Siri for the Android market at this time?
Suhayl Patel 8:48 am on October 3, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
There is a few apps in the Android Play (market) that can do similar things as Siri. One is Iris. I believe this started off as just a small group of individualsand in about 8 hours they created this app. There is also S-voice for the Galaxy s3 and it works really well. I found that I can dictate what I want into the phone and the phone is pretty accurate with what it types out.
kstackhouse 7:04 am on October 4, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks. I figured their had to be other options. I have an iphone 4 so I have only used the simple speech recognition available on it. Accuracy is such an important component with these services. I have a co-worker with a bit of an accent although he would never admit to it. He found Siri very difficult to use. He was complaining that it wasn’t working, I tried the same commands and it worked great. Is there a way to calibrate Siri and the other programs?
Colin 5:13 pm on October 3, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I did three different recordings of the text found in the post above. Dragon dictation was fairly accurate on both my slow speed and medium speed voice. The only errors I notice are that it doesn’t do a good job of ending sentences and any kind of punctuation. When I went to a faster voice then I received this
“Dragon Dictation allows you to dictate anything from e-mails blogs text you Bowcester save to clipboard to copy Greanead it meant it time-saving app.”
At certain points it had some problems and came up with some interesting results. I think it is great for someone that likes just talking and having notes taken. Though for me when I write notes I also organize them so they make better sense. The options for formatting are rather limited. I don’t see any uses for me in my classroom unless a student has writing issues.
Eva Ziemsen 6:32 am on October 4, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I have also used Dragon before, while traveling, as I wanted to record story ideas. Unfortunately the software made many mistakes and it became more of a farce to see what it was actually writing down. My hope was to use this app with brainstorming assignments, and also for students to use as a form of logging ideas quickly. In terms of creative writing, I would see many uses for this app, since many people come up with ideas in quick bursts. For example, perhaps when waking up from a dream, it would be handy to have this app available and then later, use the material in an actual written form. I think this app would help the many students that feel their writing is weak, which often causes them to avoid writing. In this case, they would see that they have great ideas and encourage them to write further. Lastly, it would be idea for recording dialogue scenes for screenplays. You could improvise with actors, and simply have it all recorded and written out. If the errors could be worked out further on this app, I would use it in many capacities.
pcollins 7:32 am on October 4, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I’ve incorporated Dragon into my tutoring, specifically for what Colin identified…. missing punctuation and grammar mistakes. Then we spend time looking over the text and polishing it. But it can by a tad trying because of having to slow down the conversation to a point that the text isn’t filled with too many mistakes. I am also a bit curious about how relying on apps like Dragon changes our learning methods and potentially our brains. If we are slowly moving away from handwriting with students, will there be ramifications? In my other class right now the focus is on potential “rewiring” of our brains because of the incorporation of technology. It’s interesting to think about.
manny 11:26 am on October 4, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I have experimented with Dragon Dictation and it is useful for students with written output problems but does have its limitations. Along with the limitations mentioned above (words must be spoken clearly and slowly), I found that the biggest obstacle was finding a space for the student to make their recording. In a functioning classroom, there is lots of chatter and background noise which interferes with this apps functionality. A student wanting to use this at school would need a quiet space in order for to maximize its effectiveness. I found that students who had written output problems resisted using this app as they did not want to leave the classroom and be seen as “different” from the other students.
jameschen 12:52 am on October 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I have experimented with voice recognition software before, and have always been disappointed by their results. From my experience, accuracy in such software is determined not only by a person’s accent but also the speed and tone of voice in which a person dictates. Even more frustrating is when the software mistakenly recognizes what has been said for something else which necessitates additional commands to delete the unintended text input. Although the time spent on training such software would increase its accuracy, I think the usage of such software will instead have more impact on training a person’s tolerance and patience with technology.
On the flip side, I have heard that English language learners have used such software to train their own English speaking skills. An example of this can be found at http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2012/05/10/use-googles-speech-recognition-tool-to-play-a-game-learn-english/
James
joeltremblay 5:43 am on October 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi there all,
I used Dragon Dictation over the past week and have found it extremely useful for both long term and short term solutions to complex problems. When considering complex issues, I have found that the full version of Dragon, rather than the app, is best used on the computer because of it’s ability to learn from your speaking tendencies. It slowly builds up a vocabulary of your accent the more you speak with it and the longer you use it, the more effective it is.
Being a film teacher I need to do reviews and critiques of my students films on a fairly regular basis so that they can improve them consistently and thus become better film teachers. While the app version was not very useful for this sort of thing, the computer version was as it allowed me to write out complex critiques in about half the time than would have taken with typing alone. I’m quite a fast typer (60 plus words a minute) as well so this came as a surprise to me.
That being said, the app version has it’s uses. For example, my wife and I stopped using regular to do lists this week and both installed dragon in an attempt to add some efficiency to our lives and it worked marvelously. I think the key with this app is knowing what it’s limitations are and taking advantage of them when you need them but not trying to shoe horn it into something other than what it is capable of. In fact, that should be the mantra for most apps honestly.
Joel
joeltremblay 5:45 am on October 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
By the way this entire reply was done with dragon dictation 🙂
* Film students not teachers as it states.
C. Ranson 7:25 am on October 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Everyone,
This is great dialogue, I downloaded Dragon Dictation and few other apps this week to my iphone that I thought were more applicable to adult education. I agree with Joel Dragon Dictation does have its limitations but can be useful for to do lists, reminders related to course content, such as websites, articles to look up, quotes that you may want to use in a paper, ideas that you want to capture in the moment, important concepts from a lecture. Keeping in mind cell phone are permitted in adult education classrooms. It certainly is a good option if you don’t have Siri. This activity was a great opportunity to learn about and try different apps.
Catherine