Voice Typing in Google Docs

This is a slick tool that was recently added to Google Documents. I'm actually doing this entire blog entry using the Google Voice typing tool. So here we go. Let’s see how Google Voice typing tool works for me. Also I am on the clock to see how long it takes to verbally create this document versus that of traditional keyboarding.

I have tried many different speech to text apps and websites. Voice typing is by far the most user-friendly and recognizes just about all of the words that I use.  I'm using My Chromebook and its standard microphone. I can talk at a regular tone without having to raise my voice or enunciate the words to try to help the computer recognize what I'm saying. You can find  voice typing in the tools menu just below word count.

For me this is a time saver to enter text on documents when my hands aren’t free during science lab notes in the classroom.  After opening this tool, just click on the microphone and I verbally enter the words into the document. Its that easy! In addition, daily journals and substitute teacher plans can be simply created. These are just a few classroom functions that I will use voice typing right away.

I know what you're thinking, we're getting too lazy to keyboard and do it the right way. I still know how to keyboard and I practice this skill on a regular basis. However, sometimes it's nice to have the ability to say the words as they pop into my head and have them entered on a document. Believe it or not it's actually more accurate than my keyboarding skills sometimes. I always have a tough time making sure there is a “r” attached to the word “you”, which has changed the whole meaning for many of my sentences.

For students in my science class I see this as a valuable resource, to assess what they know about science concepts. Many times their language arts skills and keyboard abilities get in the way of showing what they have learned with a lab or the concepts. Again, students need to learn to be effective keyboard managers. Still it is nice to have different options available for different learning styles and skills, for assessment that is needed in today's education climate.

So as I close out this entry and my personal review of voice typing. I feel it's been a success. This entry is just under 500 words and I was able to complete it in less than 5 minutes. That includes starting and stopping to gather my thoughts and to complete the sentences in paragraph form. For me a big plus is mentally forming better sentence structure because voice typing is obviously going to enter what I say and does not fix my verbal errors. Try it and see what you think.

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