Help ALL Students Enjoy Writing with Google's Voice Typing

Think for a moment about the barriers that writing assignments pose to students. One student may find it difficult to get their thoughts to paper. A student with cerebral palsy may find it difficult to type text, while a student with a broken arm may have the same challenges. How do you meet your learning goal of composing a paper, while addressing the needs of your students?

Google recently made an important addition to Google Docs called Voice Typing. This is no longer an add-on, but a standard feature. How does it work? Visit the Tools menu and choose Voice Typing.



This free tool simply takes voice to text technology to help your students compose a writing assignment. After playing with it for awhile, I found it to be very easy to use and accurate. Although not 100% accurate (when you think about it, what is?), it is still a valuable resource built into Google Docs. Students and teachers of all abilities will find this tool valuable.

Google has used this technology before. For example, when you open up Chrome, you have the ability to use speech to text to conduct a Google search. In the past, this has been perfect for my students who are dyslexic or have difficulties spelling.


Remember it's all about working smarter and eliminating barriers, sot hat students can spend more time learning and less time struggling.