When I hurt my left arm in a work-related accident in 2002, just after I had been accepted into graduate school for writing, I'd never even heard of the Dragon. During my first semester, the chronic pain increased along with my need to type. Eventually, I couldn't type enough and had to call up friends and dictate to them. I am a chronic reviser, though, so that experiment was an entertaining, time-consuming not-quite-success. Then I did a lot of research and discovered the Dragon. It's...
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Hi my name is Raymond Wood and I use Dragon every day. I was involved in a more cycle accident the day after Thanksgiving 2008; I paralyzed my right arm and broke my right leg so bad that I will have to walk with a cane the rest of my life. My Dragon is running as soon as I start my computer, typing with one hand can be very taxing; Dragon has made it possible for me to stay in college. I go to college online, while working I was only able to go half-time, after the accident I didn't think I...
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Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Dragon Naturally Speaking has absolutely changed my life! I am what you might call a cyber professor, I teach Humanities and Anthropology to students around the world entirely online. In order to make a living this way, I have to teach a lot of classes. With the volume of students I teach, I read a lot of e-mails, grade a lot of papers, and facilitate many discussion boards every week. When my classroom-based colleagues ask...
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As an online educator, I had a colleague tell me about Dragon Naturally Speaking a few years ago. I was always in awe of how fast she could turn around a graded paper, or dash off a note to a student in AIM or e-mail. So, I decided to give it a try for myself. I have found that my feedback to students is more comprehensive, my discussion posts richer, and my e-mail responses more direct through the use of speech recognition software. Before using this software I would try and limit my comments in...
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Dragon has come to the rescue for me. I assist two Executives for an International Corporation. So when it comes to be Dragon so handy, it is really wonderful. I use Dragon on a daily basis. My job demands so much of me - so when it comes to fulfill my weekly duties as drafting and formatting sales reports, schedules of 17 regional VPs, conference calls, reservations, constant replies of correspondence, etc, etc,) Dragon has greatly assisted me since I was diagnose with Carpal tunnel (tendonitis...
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Dragon has come to the rescue for me. I assist two Executives for an International Corporation. So when it comes to be Dragon so handy, it is really wonderful. I use Dragon on a daily basis. My job demands so much of me - so when it comes to fulfill my weekly duties as drafting and formatting sales reports, schedules of 17 regional VPs, conference calls, reservations, constant replies of correspondence, etc, etc,) Dragon has greatly assisted me since I was diagnose with Carpal tunnel (tendonitis...
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While trying to complete my Masters Degree at Liberty University I found myself working 65 plus hours as a new COO of a mental health organization and had to find time to somehow complete my Masters Thesis in order to graduate on time. My old method was that I would complete several rough drafts and rough those drafts even more before I was able to complete the final draft before having to get my wife to have mercy on me and type it for me. I had not taken typing in school (I was/am a hunter &...
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Dragon NaturallySpeaking has changed my academic, professional, and personal life. I was introduced to the Dragon NaturallySpeaking software while working on a master degree in piano pedagogy. I am a pianist and I do other work with my hands. I was basically self-taught during my early piano study which means I developed bad technique on the instrument. While completing my under graduate studies in jazz piano I was diagnosed with tendonitis in my right hand, from over practice with bad technique...
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Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 For our 12 year old son, school was a nightmare. His Aspergers made the work tedious, his dyslexia was frustrating, and his dysgraphia made handwriting extremely difficult and exhausting. According to him, it was torture every day until he met the Dragon. He had seen me using my Dragon 5 and was fascinated by sound turning to text, but it wasn't appropriate for a child to use... then, Dragon 9 came out and it sounded perfect! It took a bit of practice and he...
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Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Living with chronic pain is not easy, and it is because of the chronic pain that I chose to be an English major. When I started to choose a career, little did I know I would fall in love with writing and enjoy every minute of the literature classes. It only took two consecutive exams for me to realize that I had chosen the best area of study, I absolutely loved writing those essays, but my hands were less than thrilled. It caused my fibromyalgia to flare and I...
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I originally purchased Dragon because I was having trouble with Rheumatoid Arthritis and my job involves a lot of typing. It has been incredibly helpful in productivity. My son is a very bright young man, but was having a lot of trouble completing written assignments in elementary school. I spoke with a friend, who is his school psychologist, and she asked why Brent wasn't using my Dragon program since his thoughts were coming along much faster than his ability to write them down. Since he is...
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I use Dragon to create transcripts that allow hearing-disabled students to follow along with video lectures used in online college courses. -- Jack Walters
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"Yeah?" The Proctor towered over me in the classroom doorway, eyeing me and the laptop bag slung over my shoulder. "Can I use my computer for the final?" I asked meekly. "Where's your blue book?" he asked. "My instructions say no one takes the final without a blue book." "This is my blue book," I said shrugging the shoulder carrying the laptop, "I use my computer and --" "A. Blue. Book." He repeated again, grabbing the door...
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Dragon Naturally Speaking is my Official Teaching Assistant. I teach writing and research on both the graduate and undergraduate levels. For years I would make corrections by writing between the lines, around the side, top, and bottom of the page, crossing over, crossing out, and trying my best to help my students become better, more effective writers. Some of the more challenging papers ended up looking like Etch-a-Sketch rejects. Nevertheless, I plodded on, doing my best to help my students do...
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My beautiful daughter, Sara, now 13, was diagnosed at age 7 with a rare, degenerative, neurological condition called Spinocerebellar Ataxia, Type 8. One of the symptoms is an intention tremor affecting her fine motor skills, which makes writing extremely difficult, and causes fatigue. Having this physical disability resulted in her placement in the Special Education program at school, where her peers, or an assigned aide would write for her. At home, she would dictate to me and I would write out...
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Before using Dragon's Naturally Speaking, it would take me 30-40 minutes to grade a student's essay, and even then I still had to leave a lot of feedback out because of time restrictions. However, after I started using Dragon I found that I can dictate my comments directly into a student's digital essay, integrating with the word processor's "comments" feature. I have also set up shortcuts for frequently-used comments so I can speak a short statement and Dragon will place...
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I returned to college to become a teacher after many years in the automotive repair industry. I experienced difficulity with typing all the English essays that were assigned. I could not type fast; only at a slow pace (only 7wpm with errors) my frustration level rose rapidly, this caused extreme distress and trauma to occur because of all the essays that were required weekly and their length of 2-4 pages. After a month of sheer pain and struggle with the teachers, essays and note taking I was exhausted...
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For years I have given tips to my doctoral students on how and and why to use the Dragon. Many of my colleagues began using it when writing textbooks. My own use-both professionally and personally - is simple, yet using the Dragon has made more efficient use of my time. When writing for research, it is easier to read from the articles, journals and texts I may want to use use later on. I place each piece in a folder for a given topic - then when I need it, I not only cut and paste, but the page numbers...
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I use the dragon to correct college student assignments. It allows me to quickly address corrections and recommendations to the writer in a comfortable and easy manner. The reaction from the students is that they seem to think I am talking to them instead of using very brief messages that are not very candid or in any detail. I can add enormous detail very easily. When correcting papers one tends to use very limited explanations to the writer, but with dragon one can easily explain complex ideas...
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In 58 years old it was not an easy decision to go back to college to get my Masters degree. Since my graduation with an undergraduate degree in 1973, I've always had a secretary or an administrator. Consequently I never developed typing skills. My Masters degree revolves around human resources/change management, and leadership skills. There seems to be a lot of report writing in this curriculum. I had used the first version of Dragon back sometime in the 90s, with limited success. In December...
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