“Educators should not hesitate to integrate technology features into instruction for students who struggle with academic tasks. These approaches can support learning by building literacy and language skills and independence…Use speech recognition technology to help struggling writers and spellers get their ideas on paper. The immediacy of the dictation process reinforces the vocabulary and use of writing conventions and punctuation…If you haven’t tried speech recognition software lately, you’ll find vastly improved capabilities, reduced training requirements and better microphones available at very reasonable costs.“

~ from “Research Matters/Technology to Help Struggling Students” by Heidi Pacuilla and Steve Fleischman, Educational Leadership, Feb. 2006, Volume 63, Number 5

I have been playing around with speech recognition software for awhile now. I think it has made significant improvements over the years. As an educator, my interest is of course, how this ICT tool can be used for education.

My impression is that using the software, students can be forced to be more conscious of how they pronounced words. This is good especially for non-native speakers. They can learn another language by practicing their reading and speaking using this software. The software will translate their speech into text. For example, an Indonesian student can speak or read in English and the software will translate it into text. The higher the accuracy of the text, I believe the better is their pronunciation because the software does require some close proximity in the vocalization to the correct pronunciation of words for the speech recognition software to be able to translate to text.

Using such speech recognition also means that students who can see speak their thoughts to the computer and have it on text. Spelling doesn’t become an issue anymore. I believe even poor spellers will be able to decode what they have converted to text. This can only improve their reading skills.

Of course, such software will be a boon for the physically handicapped as it allows them to put their thoughts down electronically. More importantly, with the increasing use of the web for the building of communities and socializing, it allows the handicapped to participate fully with everyone. Almost all the barriers to a social life is removed. It makes them a part of any community they chose to belong.

Speech recognition software is definitely something to look into for ICT for education. However, it would be useful I think to watch this video, to help you ascertain the kind of hardware and software that would help you use speech recognition software successfully.

Mulla Nasrudin stood up in the market place and started to address the throng. “O people! Do you want knowledge without difficulties, truth without falsehood, attainment without effort, progress without sacrifice?” Very soon a large crowd gathered, everyone shouting: “Yes, yes!” “Excellent!” said the Mulla. “I only wanted to know. You may rely upon me to tell you all about it if I discover any such thing.”
~ “The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin” by Idries Shah

Sometimes when I think about Indonesian schools and their attempts at improvements, I am reminded of this story. Too often schools want quick ready made solutions to launch them into the world. Often also they think that to become a Sekolah Bertaraf Internasional (SBI) all you need to do is shop.

And all too often, there will be snake oil peddlers promising them this! Today, the snake oil that is being peddled to Indonesian schools include “Singapore education” or “Singapore syllabus”, “ICT”, “English language” and “international examinations”. Indonesians will do well to heed Mulla Nasrudin.

For more Mulla Nasrudin stories that gets you pondering, click on the book cover.

I have commented before on the approach to using ICT for education for Indonesian schools. There has always been a a laboratory-centric approach to using ICT. In addition, there is also I believe an unhealthy penchant for a software centric-approach to the use of ICT. In Indonesian schools they actually teach students software like Flash, Dreamweaver or some graphic software like CorelDraw or Adobe Photoshop. It is unclear why this is done except to provide students with a familiarity with such software.

Why? I really don’t know. They believe ICT is important but is it important for students to learn such software? It is important for students to learn to be entrepreneurs. Does it mean that schools teach students specific enterepreneur-related subjects skills? What about other possible career options? Do we teach such subjects in schools too?

The lack of clarity about why ICT is used in Indonesian schools has to be addressed as ICT use in school usually amounts to quite a significant investment by the schools and parents. The North Central Regional Educational Labotory (NCREL) , a leader in the educational uses of ICT has this to say about ICT use in education:

Technology is not transformative on its own. Evidence indicates that when used effectively, “technology applications can support higher-order thinking by engaging students in authentic, complex tasks within collaborative learning contexts” (Means, Blando, Olson, Middleton, Morocco, Remz, & Zorfass, 1993). Instead of focusing on isolated, skills-based uses of technology, schools should promote the use of various technologies for sophisticated problem-solving and information-retrieving purposes (Means & Olson, 1995).

In other words, new technology can be an appropriate vehicle for promoting meaningful, engaged learning. It allows students to work on authentic, meaningful, and challenging problems, similar to tasks performed by professionals in various disciplines; to interact with data in ways that allow student-directed learning; to build knowledge collaboratively; and to interact with professionals in the field. Technologies also can be used to promote the development of higher-order thinking skills and allow opportunities for teachers to act as facilitators or guides and often as a co-learner with the students.

~ Critical Issue: Promoting Technology Use in Schools by Jan Gahala, North Central Regional Educational Laboratory

This approach makes a lot more sense as the focus is on using ICT as a tool to teach the essential skills and knowledge for the 21st Century. It is not to teach ICT per se. What ICT is used for is to support the teaching and learning beyond only the traditional teaching and learning approaches that do not prepare students to take their place in society. This is I believe one of the prerequisites of a world class school. It doesn’t prepare students for obsolescence.