Dragon Naturally Speaking advice

[Dan2025]

Hi,

 

Hope this is the right section, I've been tasked with looking into Dragon naturally speaking for potentially 6 of our pupils.

 

Just wondering if anyone has used this in an education setting, which version and if they'd recommend it!

 

Not really for productivity purposes, it's to help some of the pupils that struggle most with speech/typing etc I believe.

 

We've tried the built in windows one, which had excellent comical value.

 

I've also mentioned trying the IOS speech to text as the class does have a couple of iPads.

 

Ideally It'd be good to have a trial to make sure it works on the machines the pupils use and it can handle their needs.

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated

[Steve21]

We were told it’s vitally important to get it, wasted ages trying to bodge the cheap version to work properly, and ofc it’s never used

 

After testing it though I found the M365 much better and it’s seems to learn better as you use it

 

Steve

[Dan2025]

Thanks for this, I'd forgot Microsoft had one within Office.

 

I've just had a play with both the IOS one and the one within 365, I'm quite impressed to be honest. Not sure how well it would do with someone with a speech impairment but I imagine the same could be said for Dragon.

 

The iPad version was picking up sentences from across the room with the odd mistake.

[psydii]

Worth noting who owns Dragon/Nuance these days....

[dmj]

Worth noting who owns Dragon/Nuance these days....

 

For those like me who had to google it

 

In April 2021, Microsoft announced it would buy Nuance Communications. The deal is an all-cash transaction of $19.7 billion, including company's debt, or $56 a share.^[3] The acquisition was completed in March 2022.

 

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has used this in an education setting

Any thoughts would be appreciated

 

The problem we had was that it takes hours to train for each individual to be any use and I very much doubt the students/staff will have the time to devote to it. In my case the request came from an EHCP which specified the software so we were (legally) bound to offer that service, so we just had to grit our teeth, buy the kit and watch the money get wasted as the kit sat in a cupboard.

[psydii]

We often buy five licences a year. I've seen it used well from time to time.