{"id":12,"date":"2021-01-30T21:01:56","date_gmt":"2021-01-31T04:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540jseaton\/?p=12"},"modified":"2021-01-30T21:01:56","modified_gmt":"2021-01-31T04:01:56","slug":"voice-to-text-task-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540jseaton\/2021\/01\/30\/voice-to-text-task-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Voice to Text (Task 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this task, we were asked to tell a five-minute anecdote and have it transcribed using a text-to-speech program of our choice. Afterwards, we were to analyze it using some prompt questions. I\u2019ve chosen to attach my transcribed anecdote within the Google Doc that I used to create it (with errors noted in red but without any editing), and have also attached a screencasted video which shows the creation process. The video, transcribed document, and analysis can all be found below:<\/span><\/p>\n

Transcribed anecdote:<\/h3>\n

https:\/\/docs.google.com\/document\/d\/1lgbdpULxZ5KEKu7QktUQ4XftWobJZWX2GrMgpfEotGg\/edit?usp=sharing<\/a><\/p>\n

Screencasted video:<\/h3>\n
https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540jseaton\/files\/2021\/01\/Task-3-Voice-to-Text.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Analysis:<\/h3>\n

As you can see from the included video, I used the \u201cvoice typing\u201d tool in Google Docs for this voice-to-text exercise. When looking back over what was transcribed, the biggest thing that I noticed – and for which I originally attempted to account for myself – was the lack of punctuation. Originally I made attempts to add in punctuation and paragraph breaks myself, but it was tedious and took away from the flow of my \u201canecdote\u201d (if it can be called that). Though I always feel as though I struggle with certain punctuation pieces like colons, semicolons, dashes and parentheses, I believe they are important to help convey the non-verbal pieces of speech. If you watch the video, you can see that on at least one occasion the tool\u2019s interpretation of my speech changed as it attempted to interpret my words in a way that made grammatical sense (or at least I assume that\u2019s why the text changed after the fact). With how powerful the tool is, I was surprised it didn\u2019t also attempt to add in additional punctuation to improve the grammatical correctness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking to what I would consider \u201cright\u201d and \u201cwrong\u201d with the text, the main thing I notice is that the general idea is expressed accurately. It\u2019s impressive that five minutes of speech can be translated with – in most cases – only minor, relatively superficial errors. That said, there were definitely some mistakes, all of which I noted in red. Some of the more noteworthy mistakes were: randomly capitalizing the word \u201cprobably\u201d, interpreting the word \u201cgame\u201d as \u201ccamera\u201d, and simply not including the words \u201cperiod\u201d and \u201ccomma\u201d (when used not for the sake of adding punctuation). The only section that I feel had enough errors to really confuse the reader was that part that reads, \u201cyou’re not even really supposed to play with those two birds because<\/span> which<\/span> different changes to the game<\/span> without<\/span> the wild card <\/span>to a<\/span> nectar resource they become just<\/span> for the<\/span> two<\/span> powerful\u201d. The error with \u201cwhich\u201d was more my fault because I said \u201cwith\u201d and started to say \u201cchanges\u201d before changing course and adding \u201cdifferent\u201d in between, but adding the suffix \u201cout\u201d to \u201cwith\u201d and interpreting \u201cfar too powerful\u201d as \u201cfor the two powerful\u201d likely did great damage to the thought I was trying to convey.<\/span><\/p>\n

If the tool is designed purely to translate my words, then the biggest \u201cmistake\u201d would be omitting the many times that I said \u201cuh\u201d and \u201cum\u201d throughout the anecdote. Obviously the tool has been designed to omit those occurrences with the understanding that they generally detract from the messages that people are attempting to convey. Although I appreciate the tool doing this, I think that in certain instances – like if the tool was being used for script writing – where this could become an issue. There were also minor issues with some syncategorematic words (articles, prepositions, connectives and qualifiers) – such as \u201cit\u201d, \u201cat\u201d and \u201cof\u201d, which I assume was due to their – in most cases – monosyllabic nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

Had the story been scripted, I likely would have taken the time to dictate more punctuation. As bad as (I feel that) I am with using proper punctuation, I always spend a good deal of time attempting to use it properly. As mentioned, I attempted to dictate punctuation on several occasions, but it detracted from the message, taking away my train of thought. If scripted, I wouldn\u2019t run into the same issue and would therefore have more time to focus on adding in the punctuation properly. Other mistakes like that instance of \u201cwhich\u201d that I mentioned earlier likely wouldn\u2019t have happened, as it stemmed from me being non-commital to my word choice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Reflecting on this experience and the comparison between oral and written storytelling, I think the major difference between the two is the degree to which you can polish the story when putting it in writing. The \u201cums\u201d and \u201cuhs\u201d are removed, and there is time for reflection and review that generally adds to the clarity of the story. At the same time, written punctuation only goes so far to convey the non-verbal aspects of speech which can also help express the essence of what\u2019s being said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall, I found this to be a very interesting experience, and I am pleased with the fact that this tool was able to express my main thoughts without much trouble. It definitely performed at a higher level than I expected, and I am sure I will soon be discovering ways to incorporate this type of technology into my work.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this task, we were asked to tell a five-minute anecdote and have it transcribed using a text-to-speech program of our choice. Afterwards, we were to analyze it using some prompt questions. I\u2019ve chosen to attach my transcribed anecdote within the Google Doc that I used to create it (with errors noted in red but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71845,"featured_media":14,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9,7,8,10],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tasks","tag-oral","tag-voicetotext","tag-wingspan","tag-written"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540jseaton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540jseaton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540jseaton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540jseaton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71845"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540jseaton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540jseaton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540jseaton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions\/15"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540jseaton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540jseaton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540jseaton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540jseaton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}