At this time of year, few of our grade four students cannot type quickly on a computer keyboard or an iPad keyboard. As a result, many classes do most of their drafting on paper in notebooks. However, revision is challenging on paper. Having a quick way to convert handwritten drafts into digital texts would be a real boon.
With the release of iOS 8, Siri can now take continuous dictation. That removes the barrier of text entry on an iPad.
Here is the presentation I used to introduce Siri. Note that you can view it with the speaker notes.
I have revised it to make it work even better with my next class. One revision is adding themselves to their contacts. Most students’ Mail apps are not drawing on the full school address book as they should. I had the students add themselves as a contact so that we could teach Siri who they were. I also had them add their classroom teachers.
When I held up my iPad and demonstrated each request on slide #7 students were awed. Some even clapped. When I gave them a chance to practice talking to Siri, they were delighted. Some were even successful having Siri help them send an email.
After class I added slide #16. When I sent students off to dictate their handwritten essays, many were pressing the home button instead of the microphone to initiate dictation.
I had shared out with each of them a blank essay document via Teacher Dashboard SmartCopy. Having a written text in front of them when they first tried to dictate was a good first step.
Most were successful. In 10-15 minutes they had dictated and corrected the mistakes in their essay. Typing it would have taken them 40 minutes or longer. One child dictated her written essay. Then she dictated from her head her second essay which she had been thinking about but had not started drafting.
Some students who struggled initially were correcting every mistake as Siri made it. When I pressed them to talk a few sentences and then go back and fix mistakes, they were amazed to see that Siri went back and corrected some mistakes once she had more context.
We only had one student whose accent made the dictation too difficult. He was very frustrated. After he gave it a good try for 20 minutes, at his request he retired to typing. Fortunately, he is a quick typist. A teacher shared with him that her son has difficulty saying words with the letter R. The child was relieved to realize he was not the only one who could not make it work. Next time I teach this lesson I will discuss this ahead of time to keep kids from feeling discouraged.
I recommend to teachers that they plan a time to let children share the Siri tricks they know. For example, if you ask Siri “What does the fox say?” She gives you a different response each time you ask. Many children know other questions for which Siri makes funny responses. Give children time to explore this and share, with a clear understanding that continuing to do so after that lesson will lead to losing their Siri privileges. It is a great Friday lesson so that they have the weekend to move on from it.
nice post