[ARCHIVED] Using Canvas with speech recognition software

[szw151]

Does Canvas work with Dragon Naturally Speaking? or any speech recognition software? I know a couple of years ago it didn't and I am wondering what the current state is.

[debi_griggs]

I have been doing some research over the past few months and I am not finding any information of value. I saw one posting in which the author stated Instructure told him to use Dragon NS 14. However, I could not find any instructions, tips, or otherwise that we could pass along to students. speech recognition #speech to text

[Bobby2]

Hi  @szw151 ‌, great question!

As far as I know it's not a possibility.

I've put forward a feature idea about it if you fancy voting.

https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/14012-speech-to-text-in-rich-content-editor-in-windows-os-make... 

[szw151]

Thanks. I voted that one up.

[Bobby2]

Thanks  @szw151 feel free to share it as it hasn't gained much traction. 

[Tasha_Biesinger]

Any update on this? We just got a question about Dragon and Canvas, and if there are any tips or tricks to make Dragon work better with Canvas.

[Tasha_Biesinger]

Also, the feature request is now archived.

[jhori]

I would just like to state that I was able to navigate to this page and post to reply using nothing but voice control on Apple, which is similar to dragon on the PC. I find the best way of using this is to know the command scroll up and scroll down as well as show numbers.

[szw151]

Thank you so much for testing this!

[jhori]

My pleasure!

[jbeyer1]

This was tested with Apple software not Dragon.  Using Apple doesn't help the million of users on a PC.  

[gbeckmann]

Hi everyone! Speech recognition is not currently one of the technology categories for which we at Instructure have an officially supported/recommended solution. However, we strive to engineer Canvas to web and accessibly standards which should allow standards-based technologies that are widely compatible on the web to work properly with Canvas. 

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which is responsible for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), has a web page about Speech recognition and accessibility: https://www.w3.org/WAI/perspective-videos/voice/

As that page discusses, keyboard compatibility and proper labels/identifiers are key mechanisms for supporting speech control. Canvas is developed and tested to WCAG standards in these areas. You can read more about these standards in the Canvas VPAT: https://www.instructure.com/canvas/accessibility