Training my Dragon: how I learned to stop worrying and become a dictator.
Like many people with dyslexia I have problems getting ideas down using a keyboard. The ideas in my head are fully formed and often stay there unwritten due to the fact that when I pick up a pen or touch a keyboard the idea evaporates. Like many people with dyslexia I have the gift of the gab and using my voice to write with is in many ways one of the most natural and best things to happen to me in my writing experience.
I tried adaptive technology many years ago with little success. Recently I purchased a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking and having installed it have found it to be a fantastic tool to use. It takes some getting used to, and it takes a little while to train the package for your voice and word usage. But once you have gone through the training period and learned how to use the program and taught the program how to recognize your voice, the act of dictating becomes almost second nature.
The advantage I have in using Dragon NaturallySpeaking is that it works almost as fast as my brain can come up with ideas. This can be a two-edged sword. On the one hand, you can generate a whole slew of ideas in a matter of seconds — as quickly as you can say it is there on the screen. On the other hand, every utterance out of your mouth becomes part of the text, and as such it can require a lot…
