Earlier today, I spent some time trying out the voice recognition option that comes with Microsoft Word. To access it, you first open a Word document and select "tools", then "speech". The program will then lead you through configuring your microphone and training your speech. The initial training takes about 10 minutes and asks you to read a blurb about voice recognition. The vocabulary seemed to be fairly high (middle to high school level?), and may be difficult for younger students to read. However, I was extremely impressed with the accuracy of this program after only one training session. It seems to use the same voice files as WordQ/SpeakQ (or vice versa), so maybe it had a head start from the training I had done earlier. Nevertheless, it was about 90% accurate and had the additional capabilities of voice commands such as "select all" and "delete". I had to do very little editing. Not bad for a free program! Wow!
I also used it to create a Powerpoint presentation, and to write an email so it works in other applications as well. I would be interested to compare all the programs when being used with students who may not have complete fluency and articulation clarity. I plan to try these programs with students this week. I am still waiting for Dragon Naturally Speaking to arrive in the mail...
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