Windows XP Voice Recognition Training

There’s a manual being given away while supplies last by a gruop that did a lot of work with voice rec but their funding ran out — however, it’s a manual for using “discrete” speech rec. (which is considered by some to be better for severely LD kids). Here’s the blurb (followed by my own experience with it):
Speak to Write Special Offer!

The Speak to Write project is offering the remaining copies of Speak to
Write: Supporting the Use of Discrete Speech Recognition Technology for
Struggling Writers manual free (the only cost is shipping and handling
charges of $5.95)—ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST. This manual is appropriate for
technology minded special educators, speech pathologists, parents, and
others who are looking for solutions for students who have severe writing
difficulties. This manual is based on the research and field-work of the
project and assumes the user has a basic knowledge of Dragon Dictate. It
includes suggestions for implementation of speech recognition in schools,
for individualization of training on Dragon Dictate, for integration of
Dragon Dictate with language arts curriculum, and for developing “train the
trainer” models. It also includes training tools and scripts that can be
used with adult pairs or in the training of students.

To order the Speak to Write Manual, visit
http://www.edc.org/spk2wrt/manual_home.htm, or call the distribution center
at 1-800-793-5076. All orders must be prepaid with a check or credit card
by September 13, 2002. Note: The manual DOES NOT include the Dragon Dictate
discrete speech recognition software which must be purchased separately
through Dragon Systems or a reseller (the Speak to Write Web site -
http://www.edc.org/spk2wrt/links - has some resellers listed).

I did the training with a group — all but one were professionals and parents. The “real” LD guy in there was highly motivated but found it *highly* frustrating. Not sure whether he decided to use it or not.
I’ve been following it, and this is a pretty typical reaction. Basically, both the training process and using the stuff involve lots of intensive language — tough issues for LD kids. In one of my LD journals a teacher tried it with 5 students — it was abust for 4/5 of them, and they had all started out hoping for great and wonderful things. THe 1/5 for whom it was a success was the kiddo with the biggest motor issues and the smallest language-processing problem.
There’s a website

My last school was Windows XP. I tried the builtin speech to text with the TV and it was fairly accurate right out of the box. I have an LD daughter and decided I wanted to try it. I bought Dragon Naturally speaking-trained it for my voice to see how difficult it was. My daughter and I then trained it for her voice. It is not a 10 minute job but I found it to be productive for her after the second reading/training session. Most importantly, it was easy for her (just turned 11) to correct the machine produced text. Of course, the more you use it the better it gets.

I, too, sent for the guide but couldn’t wait. I got started with just the Dragon materials. It took a couple of hours for me to get comfortable with it and another couple of hours to do a lot of the rading/training but I dictating emails after that!

My daughter’s school is all Macintosh. I purchased ViaVoice expecting the same level of recognition and ease. Not so-very difficult to train. Materials not conducive to kid’s training, very difficult to correct. Just not in the same ballpark at all.

Sue:

I had looked at the Speak to Write site, but I got the impression the disks would be long gone. So, I didn’t bother. Think I’ll give them a go anyway now that I’ve read your response :) Before I do however, do you know if the manual found on the LDonline website is the same? That is part of what I am basing my program on.

mmm:

Great to get some feedback from a parent! You give me hope for this.

I’d like to add we have started the program in school and the student is HUGELY enthusiastic. His parents are letting him try it at home, and for the first time he is attempting to do his homework by himself. Amazing. We have a long way to go, both in training (he has maybe a 40-50% accuracy at home, and a 25% accuracy at school -less training in school-limited time), and keeping him focused (he spent an hour and a half trying to get Word to build a graph using only voice, which was not part of his homework assigment).

One question. Does anyone know how to transfer the voice files between computers? And how that is set up?