[icon name="fa-cloud-upload"] STANDARD 3: model digital age work and learning
If Kaizena is focused on sharing audio feedback, Google speech recognition engine is now available in Google Docs. This tool allows you to speak in place of typing. Instead of using the keyboard, you can directly dictate your text or comments and they will be transcribed as text onto your document.
Dictate Text in Google Docs
To activate the speech engine, open a Google Doc and click on Tools > Voice Typing. An overlay icon of a microphone will pop up, click it and start talking while it is red.
Google Microphone for Speech Recognition
Once you are done, don’t forget to click on the microphone again to turn it off.
Combined with Google Docs suggestion mode, this is a fast way to leave comments on your students work in two clicks. Watch the animated image below to learn how to dictate text in Google Docs and pay attention to how I switched the suggesting mode on to add suggestions for the students:
Voice Dictation in Google Docs
Language teachers could use the power of Google’s voice recognition to help their students’ pronunciation in foreign languages. If the computer recognizes the words the students spoke out, they pronounced it well!
Tips For Speech Recognition
- Speak slower but conversationally
- Speak close to your computer’s microphone (on the left side of your MacBook Pro) in a quiet room
- Here are the following commands to enter punctuation:
Period = . Comma = , Question mark = ? Exclamation = ! Apostrophe = apostrophe (‘) New paragraph = starts a new paragraph
Google’s Artificial Intelligence Behind Speech Recognition
Google’s voice recognition engine uses a type of artificial intelligence called deep learning. Andrew Ng defines his development of deep learning at Google as “a learning technology that works by loosely simulating the brain”. You can learn more about deep learning artificial intelligences powering speech and image recognition in Deep-Learning AI Is Taking Over Tech on re/code.
Google Deep Learning Artificial Intelligence
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I love your website, Victor. It’s so clean and professional. I admire your professionalism as you consistently go above and beyond as a digital education coach. Today, I needed to be reminded of the dictation tool in Google Docs because I have a lot of work to do and I would like to see if dictating would save me some time. I’ve only played around with it in workshops, but I haven’t actually used it. I’ll try to make sure I have my students try it out, as well. It may help some of them pay attention to their spelling and grammar. Also, it might help some of my students to actually produce longer pieces because some of the new students don’t know how to type in English yet. Good job, Victor!
Hello Gene,
I deeply appreciate your feedback. I am glad that you are sensitive to the design of the website, as well as its content. I spent a lot of time curating both.
The dictation tool is consistently getting better. I am very impressed by its rate of accuracy. Clearly Google enabled deep learning for this function too and it pays off.
I look forward to hearing about how your students like to use the voice recognition and how much you think it benefits your ELL learner.
It sounds like you are investing some positive energy in your classroom too. Keep up the good work!
Until next time!
Victor