Google releases "speech to text" capability in Google Docs
Google released a new feature called Voice Typing last week. Google Docs&rsquo; users can now type with their voice, writing an entire essay without having to touch the keyboard. It is even possible to punctuate with voice typing, with several phrases users can choose from to punctuate their text (e.g &lsquo;period&rsquo;, &rsquo;comma&rsquo;, &lsquo;exclamation mark&rsquo;, &lsquo;question mark&rsquo;, &lsquo;new line&rsquo;, &lsquo;new paragraph&rsquo;).
Google Apps for Education will reportedly support more than 40 million active teachers and students this school year, reaffirming Google Classroom's influence in schools. This week, Google added several new features to Google Docs to improve using it in the classroom, and Education World wants to know what you think.

One of the big additions to Google Docs is a new feature that allows you to type without typing at all.

Put simply, "[a] voice feature is now part of the Tools menu in Docs for Chrome. When that's turned on, the user can record ideas or compose text without using the keyboard," according to THEJournal.com.

"During a demo of the feature at Google's San Francisco office Wednesday, the voice typing feature worked much like other dictation apps — it was able to distinguish between text and punctuation commands like 'new paragraph.' Voice typing is available beginning Wednesday in 40 different languages," said Mashable.com.

However, Drew Olanoff of Tech Crunch brings an interesting point to the table when discussing the new addition: how useful will it really be for the classroom?

"Now on to the part that I’m not completely buying: 'Talk To Docs' aka voice typing. Google has taken the powerful voice to speech technology it uses for search and Google Now and piped that into Docs. Now you can dictate your notes or the paper you’re working on. Sounds great, except I can’t imagine 10 kids in a class talking to their computers (or someone sitting at their desk at work doing the same)," Olanoff said.

While Google did add several other features that will undoubtedly provide great benefit to the classroom, such as the "'Share to Classroom' extension [which] allows teachers to push a link to all the students in their classroom at once, regardless of what type of laptop they are using," we're wondering how useful the Voice Typing feature will be.

Let us know by taking our poll or commenting below.

Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

09/04/2015