Speech to Text app on a mobile

Posted on July 1, 2013 by E.A. Draffan

“I like to generate a transcript of a lecture session and I use speech to text to dictate into my mobile or I record the session” D.T.

There are several ways of dictating and producing text on the mobile – iPhone has built in speech recognition (Siri) for many of its apps or the use of Dragon Dictation when online that allows short paragraphs to be dictated and collected within its own note pad. Android has Dragon mobile assistant and if you want to experiment there is Utter in beta mode for commands. It does not make the Android totally hands free, but it shows the beginning of an off/online conversation with reactions!

utter! Android Voice Command Assistant – BETA! YouTube video

Using academic word lists to help with assignments plus WordSift or Wordle

Posted on April 11, 2013 by E.A. Draffan

“I find the online websites that have subject specific word lists are helpful when looking for words that need to be used for academic writing” Lettie

There is the WordSift site at Stanford University that works like Wordle showing a section of text with the words you use most being shown in large sized fonts. The WordSift site also has the Visual Thesaurus to help when making choices of words.

Here is a YouTube video tutorial using WordSift

Evernote for organising courseware

Posted on March 4, 2013 by E.A. Draffan

“In order to organise my courseware I use an online tool called Evernote. This helps me to ‘clip’ useful information from websites and also to save some reminders. The app can be used online as a web app and also installed as a Chrome browser bookmark or Android and iPhone mobile or tablet app. The offline app can then sync to your profile.” Andreas (MSc Web Science)

Keith Everett has provided a useful YouTube video about how he has worked with Evernote and he shows the Chrome browser bookmark as well as talking about linking with a mobile phone.

SwiftKey Android mobile app for speedy keyboarding.

Posted on February 21, 2013 by E.A. Draffan

“SwiftKey mobile app for Android is super great with writing prediction. It can even create meanings from very incorrectly spelt words. Great for speed writing an also for dyslexic users!” Andrew (computer science)

SwiftKey have produced a YouTube video of their version 4 of the app where you can also write phrases with word prediction.

Free Dictionary on the iPad and Dictionary.com app

Posted on February 8, 2013 by E.A. Draffan

“I like the way on the iPad the dictionaries are available from different apps but I also use the free Dictionary.com and Thesaurus app as it works offline and gives me the pronunciation of words.” Andreas

There are advertisements supporting the free version of the app. These disappear if you pay £2.99 for the ad free version of the Dictionary. The iPad version also appears to work on an iPhone OS 6 as can be seen in the image and you can say the word using speech recognition.

Butterscotch.com have provided a YouTube video about the Dictionary.com app and mentions that you need to be online to use the audio pronunciation.

iPhone dictionary so easy to use.

Posted on December 15, 2012 by E.A. Draffan

“I like the iPhone’s dictionary – if you don’t know the meaning of a word on a website you just have to tap on it to get its meaning. So simple and easy.” Anibul

The dictionary was added for iOS 5 and it is important to just tap and hold on a single word to see the ‘Define‘ menu appear beside ‘Copy, Select All and Speak’. It does not work in all applications. In messages the complete message is highlighted on tap and hold but you can use Copy and use Speak.

Lexdis 2.0

Accessible technology for learning

Category Archives: Writing