At the Exchange, we have a number of tools that can help you to create truly exceptional eLearning content.  I’d like to share one of the latest additions to our suite of tools, Dragon Naturally Speaking, and in particular talk about training Dragon.

Dragon, simply speaking, is a tool that converts your voice into text.  This is particularly helpful when you endeavor to take your beautifully crafted interactive eLearning content and make it ADA compliant.  Typically creating captions for your content means hand transcribing what you’ve said.  What this often results in is faculty simply overlooking this part of content creation.  But this not only isn’t in compliance, it prevents the wonder of your content from being shared with all interested learners.

Luckily, our recording studio now has Dragon Naturally Speaking installed for both PC and Mac.  Here’s a great workflow for utilizing this invaluable tool.

1.  Train Dragon to recognize your voice.

It takes about five minutes to create your voice profile in Dragon.  All you have to do is read a short passage to Dragon, sort of like reading Dragon a bedtime story.  Once it has collected enough information it’ll let you know you can stop reading to it.

2.  Have Dragon transcribe the recordings that you’ve already done.

Now that Dragon recognizes the sound of your voice, you can ask Dragon to tell you what you said by transcribing an audio recording.  FYI – It can also take dictation.  This can be helpful when planning your script to begin with, especially if you are a better speaker than you are a typer.

3.  Clean up the transcription.

It should be very close, but you’ll want to double-check the transcription for any great misquotes like, “Salmonella got your PowerPoint, and so we just whatever, Argenta” or “Vista is now in Georgia state the all of the universe is George so or primarily all.”  Misquotes do happen, but training Dragon (see step 2) can cut down on their occurrence.

4.  Add the captions to your project.

Most eLearning content creation tools, like Camtasia and Captivate, have an option to add captions.  You’ll probably have to copy and paste as well as adjust timings, but think of the work you’ve saved yourself by having Dragon transcribe your voice.

Happy transcribing!

Image Credits:

Explorer by Daniel Turner from The Noun Project