• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Classroom Teacher

Exploring Dragon Naturally Speaking and Classroom Technology

  • Dragon Naturally Speaking Reviews ▼
    • Nuance Dragon Home vs Professional 15 review
    • Dragon 15 Bad Review
    • Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 13 Premium Review
  • Classroom Tech Ideas
    • Show 2 different screens:
      laptop vs projector / TV
    • Add arrows and notes onto a screenshot
  • 21st Century Learning Skills ▼
    • 6 Cs of Education
    • Goal Setting for Students:
      powerpoint, lesson, worksheet
  • About this site
    • Disclosure Policy
    • Privacy Policy

Save Time by Creating Customized Shortcuts on Your Computer for Frequently Used Sentences or Text Strings

October 10, 2011 - Leave a Comment

Teachers spend a lot time marking – assessing and evaluating their students. Best practices suggest that providing very specific qualitative feedback can produce great results. For example, 1) what a child did well, 2) where a child needs to improve, and 3) specific steps on how to improve.

The problem is that writing out long descriptive written feedback is time-consuming. It’s much easier to circle a grade on a test or rubric than it is to write out a paragraph explaining to a student how to get a better mark.

We can use computers to save time by creating customized abbreviations for frequently used sentences and text strings. In fact, lots of schools already use computer software and comment banks to speed up the process when writing report cards.

[stextbox id=”info”]If you’ve ever used copy-and-paste when typing out student comments, then this post should be able to save you some time.[/stextbox]

  • Here are some ways that you could use abbreviations software to make your life easier in the classroom
  • Here are four options to help teachers use technology in the classroom to create shortcuts that make their life easier:

Here are some ways that you could use abbreviations software to make your life easier in the classroom:

  1. Let’s say you’re taking anecdotal notes on your iPad or laptop. (If you’re using an iPad in the classroom, you should check out the WriteRoom, TextExpander and Dropbox apps to easily take notes on your iPad that you can access from your school and home computers.) You could set it up so that just by typing .date, your iPad or computer automatically enters the current date and time. (We use a period before our special shortcuts, but you could use any shortcut you wanted.)
  2. If you type .r3 you could set it up so that your iPad automatically enters something like this:

    (Mon, Oct 3, 2011 – 2:35 PM) Reading Level 3 (75%)

    That way, you could focus on recording what the student said, instead of trying to write down their level for the subject for your anecdotal note.
  3. You could set it up so that a person’s initials .hp instantly expands into a person’s full name, for example Harry Potter
  4. You could create a shortcut to automatically insert an e-mail signature.
  5. You could create a shortcut to automatically insert a boilerplate template for your feedback. If you use it. Three stars and a shooting star template, then typing .3s into a Word document might look like this

Three Stars (Three things you did well)

  • I like how you
  • I also like how you
  • finally, I like how you

Shooting Star (something to improve next time)

  • Next time, I would like you to
  1. If you’re giving written feedback on an assignment, chances are, students make similar mistakes. You could create some generic comments and have a little list besides you as you’re typing and giving feedback to your students. Here are some examples:
    • .sss1
      • only use facts explicitly from the text in your answer. You can ask questions and use personal experiences to help you to understand the text as you read, but when you are writing your paragraph answer, you should only focus on facts from the article.
    • .sss2
      • see if you can make an even more complex inference about the main idea by evaluating the controversy and explaining why it’s appropriate or inappropriate. Ask yourself, Why is this important? as you read and see if you can find more facts explicitly from the text to support your thinking.
  2. If you code, you can also use custom shortcuts to insert frequently used code fragments.

Of course, you’ll still need to go back to tweak the comments for each individual, but it’s always easier to change a few words that it is to reinvent the wheel each time.

Here are four options to help teachers use technology in the classroom to create shortcuts that make their life easier:

  1. TextExpander is a great little program for your Mac or your iPad/iPhone. The Mac version costs $34.95 US and comes with a 90 day moneyback guarantee. You can sync your shortcut “snippets” via MobileMe or Dropbox
  2. TextExpander (Touch) works on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch and lets you type short abbreviations which expand into longer sentences or “snippets.” It currently costs $4.99 from iTunes. (Note: not all apps can use the textexpander snippets. Here’s a list of the 100 trying to and counting apps that do play nicely with textexpander. In other words, if your favorite app isn’t on this list, you won’t be able to use your custom made shortcuts with the app.)
  3. Breevy is basically TextExpander for Windows by 16 software. It costs $34.95 US and comes with a free fully functional 30 day trial. Breevy also can sync with dropbox, which makes it easy for you to sync your textexpander snippets on your Windows computer with your iPad.
  4. If you prefer, you can speak your shortcut “snippets” to your computer using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium instead of typing out your abbreviations. For example, just by saying “insert reading level 3,” you could insert a much longer paragraph into your document.
    • In order to create custom commands in Dragon NaturallySpeaking to insert frequently used text and/or graphics by voice, you need to have Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium or higher. The text and graphics custom commands aren’t available in the home edition. (You can see the different versions of Dragon using this comparison chart, but you really need to look at this feature matrix to compare more specific features. Look at the last page under Text and Graphic Custom Commands.)
    • If you’re student or teacher, you may qualify to get a significant discount on Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium, but you want to read these 10 things before you buy.
    • If you have the professional or legal version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11, then you get advanced custom commands, which allow you to add variables or more sophisticated voice commands to automate routine tasks

 

This post was written using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 Premium Wireless. There is an educational discount available for qualified students and teachers but you probably want to read this post before you buy. We are compensated for our reviews. Click here for details.

  • There are 907 words in the initial draft of this post. Dragon made 11 word errors. So, we had an accuracy of 98.8% in this document.
  • If you include punctuation and capitalization errors, Dragon made an 7 punctuation and capitalization errors. So, we had an accuracy of 98.0% in this document.

Here are some of the word errors made by Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5:

  • where a child = we are child
  • than it is to write out a paragraph.= then it is to write out a paragraph.
  • to speed up = speed up
  • comment banks = comment. Thanks
  • 4.99 = for 99
  • Let’s say you’re taking = That’s it. Taking

Here are some of the punctuation / capitalization errors made by Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5:

  • better mark = better Mark
  • write out a paragraph explaining to a student how to get a better mark. = write out a paragraph explaining to a student. How to get a better Mark.

 


Dragon Naturally Speaking Home vs Professional 15 Review:

  • Nuance offers two versions of their voice software. Read this blog post comparing Dragon Professional vs Dragon Home 15.
  • UPDATE (Tue, Dec 10, 2019): By the way, I still use Dragon Professional 15 to blog and write things down – even though I type at 100+ WPM. The last post I dictated was this one about a free New Year’s Resolution writing activity.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

I use Dragon Professional 15 (OFFICIAL WEBSITE) to write documents and dictate blog posts.

  • Comparing Nuance Dragon Home vs Professional 15
  • Dragon 15 Bad Review: PROBLEMS to know about before you buy
  • Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 13 Premium vs Professional 15 review: A story about helping a friend using voice recognition software for the first time.
  • 10 things to know about Dragon Naturally Speaking Education Version BEFORE you buy

Things people google:

  • Make blog as online school
  • https://classroomteacher ca/1817/download-dragon-naturally-speaking-software/#:~:text=Unfortunately, you can only download Dragon NaturallySpeaking premium online
  • https://classroomteacher ca/3311/practices-students-dragon-naturallyspeaking-12-noisy-classroom-environment/
  • https://classroomteacher ca/3466/nuance-dragon-naturallyspeaking-13-premium-professional-review/#:~:text=All of these different packages get bundled with the software
  • https://classroomteacher ca/3466/nuance-dragon-naturallyspeaking-13-premium-professional-review/
  • https://classroomteacher ca/3466/nuance-dragon-naturallyspeaking-13-premium-professional-review/#:~:text=Nuance Dragon Home 13 allows in Nuance Dragon Home 15
  • education ipad settings locking app
  • https://classroomteacher ca/3237/computer-projectors-classroom-show-students-computer-screen/
  • https://classroomteacher ca/1294/dragon-naturallyspeaking-ipad-remote-microphone-app/
  • https://classroomteacher ca/dragon-speak-naturally-review-dragon-home-vs-professional-15/
  • https://classroomteacher ca/1817/download-dragon-naturally-speaking-software/
  • google dictionary
  • dns11servicepack1 exe
  • nu vot
  • snipping tool arrows
  • how to project one screen and work on another
  • dragon naturally speaking for ipad
  • what is dragon naturally speaking
  • dragon naturallyspeaking 11
  • dragon naturally speaking accuracy
Use Dragon Speak Naturally: Side by side comparison of Nuance Dragon Home 15 vs Nuance Dragon Professional 15 showing multiple user profile option in start window

Dragon Naturally Speaking Review: Dragon Home 15 vs Dragon Professional Individual 15 (NEWEST VERSION)

Classroom Technology

Picture of a Windows laptop screen showing one thing and the projector screen showing a different screen

How to project computer to TV and show different display on laptop / projector / TV

How to Draw on a Screenshot: Quickly Add Arrows and Text on a Screenshot (Windows)

screenshot of iPad showing general and accessibility options to lock ipad to one app

How to lock your iPad screen so students can only use 1 specific app

Recent Comments

  • Grade 8 Teacher on Dragon Naturally Speaking Review: Dragon Home 15 vs Dragon Professional Individual 15 (NEWEST VERSION)
  • Grade 8 Teacher on Dragon Naturally Speaking Review: Dragon Home 15 vs Dragon Professional Individual 15 (NEWEST VERSION)
  • Grade 8 Teacher on Dragon Naturally Speaking Review: Dragon Home 15 vs Dragon Professional Individual 15 (NEWEST VERSION)
  • Clara Chen on Dragon Naturally Speaking Review: Dragon Home 15 vs Dragon Professional Individual 15 (NEWEST VERSION)
  • Ben on Dragon Naturally Speaking Review: Dragon Home 15 vs Dragon Professional Individual 15 (NEWEST VERSION)

Copyright © 2023 · ClassroomTeacher.ca uses Dragon Naturally Speaking · Log in