Helen is in third year and attends her local mainstream secondary school. Helen has a significant shake in her arms and hands and poor fine motor skills, and because of this she cannot keep up with the pace of work in the class and her handwriting is hard to read. Due to her shake she does not sleep well so is over very tired and struggles to concentrate.
Helen had a personal lightweight laptop and staff said that this did have a significant impact on her access to the curriculum. Worksheet are printed out and provided for Helen by teachers to she is not expected to copy anything from the board. She receives individual support in class from at Learning Assistant who will keep her on task and is able to type for her when necessary.
However, the school referred Helen again because her speed of working in class, and fatigue, were still challenging, and they wanted advice on access methods that might increase speed and reduce fatigue. Helen also found the laptop heavy to carry around in school.
Helen could access and use the laptop keyboard and trackpad, but relatively slowly and with great effort. So how can she type faster and with less effort?
There are a few techniques, including:
But an obvious access method to explore was speech recognition, given that this technology can:
There are several speech recognition systems available (see CALL's Speech Recognition web pages) and we chose to evaluate Dragon because:
The newer versions of Dragon do not require any initial training, and so Helen created a voice profile in a few minutes and we taught her how to dictate with the software. The results were immediately impressive, and Helen was keen to evaluate the speech recognition in school. We spent some time in the morning going through further training to improve the system's accuracy, and also completed a basic tutorial on the software.
Helen was keen to get going, so in the afternoon she took the laptop with her to the Geography class and used it successfully to dictate answers to questions.
Sounds easy eh?
Well, yes and no. Helen has a clear and confident speaking voice, and so dictation accuracy was good from the very start. Secondly, she is a confident young woman who was not concerned about dictating out loud in the middle of a busy classroom. And thirdly, she has excellent literacy skills and her dictated language is of high quality. As a result, the software worked for her.
But speech recognition does not work for everyone. Bethany, another learner in Helen's class evaluated Dragon at the same time and the results were quite different. Bethany has quite significant reading, writing and spelling challenges and she is quieter and less confident. At first, accuracy was poor, but after creating a second user profile, Bethany was able to dictate with good results and we successfully went through accuracy training and a basic introduction to the software. In class, however, Bethany was really not happy about dictating out loud.
What do these stories tell us about speech recognition and how we need to support young people who are learning to use it in school?
Helen used Dragon and the new laptop in class for about three months. Helen and her Support for Learning teacher both completed CALL evaluation forms to evaluate impact of the technology on her access to the curriculum:
Successful learner
Confident individual
Effective contributor
Responsible citizen
"This technology has given Helen a real boost. lt has given her a sense of self belief and a determination to work on her own knowing that she is able to. This technology will have an impact in the immediate and long term for this pupil and I know she will appreciate what it means to her."
This form is to help you think about the technology you have tried out and compare it with ordinary reading and handwriting. Fill in the form when you feel you have a good idea about what it is like to use the equipment.
Use a scale of 1 to 10. Score 1 if that factor is so bad that you would not dream of ever considering it. Score 10 if it is so brilliant that you could not do without it.
| Reading paper books and handwriting with jotters Score 1 to 10 1=rubbish 10=brilliant | Laptop & software for reading and Dragon for writing. Score 1 to 10 1=rubbish 10=brilliant | |
| Reading web sites | Note because of [1] | |
| Reading school work | 10 | See [2] |
| Your speed of reading | 10 | See [2] |
| Understanding what you read | 10 | See [2] |
| Writing / typing speed on keyboard | 4 | 8 |
| Dictating speed with Dragon | NA | 9 |
| Legibility / quality of writing / typing | 3 | 9 |
| Your spelling | 8 | 10 |
| Effort needed to write / type | 2 | 8 |
| Effort needed to dictate with Dragon | NA | 10 |
| Portability (weight / size) | ? | 5 |
| Ease of use | 1 | 9 |
| Ease of printing a paper copy | 2 | 7, see [3] |
| Screen (size / text size / clarity) | NA | 8 |
| Keyboard | NA | 8 |
| Battery life | NA | 10 |
| Appearance / cool factor | ? | 8 see [4] |
| Opinions of friends | ? | ? |
| Opinions of family | ? | 10 |
| Opinions of teachers | ? | 9 |
| Your opinion! | ? | 9 |
[1] "Current laptop does not connect to internet but if it did - 8." (The CALL loan laptop was not permitted to connect to the school network.)
[2] "Helen doesn't have an issue with reading."
[3] "This laptop doesn’t connect to any printer." (The CALL loan laptop was not permitted to connect to the school network.)
[4] "It does what I need it to do."
Helen said: "It is a very useful Dragon. Dictation is very easy software to use. I use it a lot in school. It has really helped me. I do find my laptop a bit heavy to carry around."
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