This week I was playing around with a technology most of us have access to on our smartphones but rarely ever engage with... dictation. After a short while I quickly realised just how far the technology has come in recent years. My device made very little errors while dictating my voice, making me wonder why I don’t use the tool more often. Why don’t we encourage this more with students at school?
While it does appear easier than typing at first, dictation is not completely intuitive. To use dictation effectively there is a need to learn certain vocabulary and to gain the ability to think confidently and clearly before you speak.
Speaking clearly and confidently and thinking slightly ahead of your voice is a great skill for elementary students to start to develop. In fact it links directly to reading comprehension and is very similar to the running record assessments or "flight checks" that online reading programs like Raz Kids offer.
Below are just some examples of the vocabulary I had to master to use dictation effectively. Students learn these words in English class as well, which might present opportunities to teach embed dictation skills into current units of study.
When you say "five" Siri writes five, but when you say "numeral five" Siri writes 5.
Say "New line" for line break.
Say "New paragraph" for paragraph break.
Say "All caps on" or "All caps off"
Say "full stop" or "period"
Say "ampersand" is the & sign
Say "open parenthesis" is ( and "close" )
When I felt good with dictation I graduated myself to using it for hands-free text messaging. What a proud moment that was when I was actually sent the most grammatically correct text message I have ever created in my life (see video clip below).
So the question I had this weekend was...
Shouldn't we provide students with the opportunity to develop this valuable skill at school?
My thought is yes, especially if students and teachers already have access to iPads at school. It shouldn't replace hand writing (printing) by any means, but I do know that some schools are still teaching cursive. One could easily argue that if lack of time is an issue dictation would be a better investment of time than cursive writing.
It seems very likely that this technology will only continue to improve and become a more ubiquitous part of daily life. In terms of preparing students for an ever changing future, dictation just might be a differentiator, at least in terms of productivity in university or the job market.
What do you think?