Speech Recognition Exercises

These exercises are designed to teach you how to use windows 7 speech recognition. To be able to do them you will need a computer with windows 7 and with a working microphone, preferably one with a headset.

Before you start read:How this training is Done

If you feel there any mistakes in these notes, please e-mail me at: geoffreykgreig@gmail.com

Click here for information about using speech recognition in Vista

1. - Click on start, control panel, Ease of access, start speech recognition. What appeared on the screen? You should see the voice recognition dialogue. That is a small window with a microphone icon on the left hand side.
2. - Right click on the microphone. What appeared? This is the context menu for speech recognition.
3. - Say “does this work”. Did anything appeared on the screen? No, because speech recognition although activated is not yet started.
4. - Click on the microphone icon. What happened? The microphone should have turned to blue and the word listening should have appear in the black rectangle.
5. - Say “ is this working ”. What happened? “What was that?” Was shown in the black rectangle. That means that the speech recognition did not understand the command you gave it.
6. - Say “stop listening”, what happened? The blue microphone icon change to black and the word “ off” appeared in the black rectangle.
7. - How do you think you would get speech recognition to start again? Click on the microphone icon or right click on the microphone and click on “On: listen to everything I say”

1. - Click on the X to the right of the speech recognition dialogue. What happened. Speech recognition stopped. Do what is required to start speech recognition again. (see the notes above).
2. - Do what is required to stop speech recognition again.

Click here for information about using speech recognition in Vista

Note: because the speech tutorial takes up the entire screen you will not be able to see these exercises until after you finish the tutorial. After you finish the tutorial, return to these exercises.

1. - Click on start, control panel, Ease of access, start speech recognition, speech recognition. Click on Take Speech Tutorial. What happened? The speech tutorial should have started. You can go through the tutorial to the end or stop it at any time by clicking on the X at the top right corner. You can also start any section of the tutorial by clicking on that sections name
2. - You should go through the complete tutorial. Preferably multiple times.
3. - What did you learn from doing the tutorial?
4. - And do what is required to exits speech recognition

Do what is required to start speech recognition.

1. - Say “ what can I say” . What happened? The speech reference card should have appeared on the screen. If it did not, repeat this step
2. - If an insertion bar is flashing in the Search help rectangle then click in a blank area of the main window below. What happened? The flashing insertion bar should have disappeared. The reason you need to do this is so the next step will work correctly. Otherwise what you say will be entered into search bar
3. - Say “how can I use speech recognition”. What happened? The equivalent of clicking on how can I use speech recognition should have happened
4. - Say “Common Speech Recognition commands” What happened? The equivalent of clicking on Common Speech Recognition commands should have happened
5. - Read through the commands that you can see. Do you understand them all? If not you could try saying them
6. - Say “scroll down”. What happened? The screen should have scroll down. Say “scroll down” again. What happened? The screen should have scroll down again. How do you think you would get it to scroll up with speech recognition? Try it.
7. - Read the rest of the commands and try performing them. You may need to be in a particular function to be able to use the voice command

NOTE: During this session, if the words you say do not appear as they should, do not attempt to correct them. Editing using speech recognition will be presented in the next session.

1. - Do with what is required to start speech recognition
2. - Say “ open notepad”. What happened? The notepad programe should have started
3. - Say “ this is my first dictation”. What happened? The words that you just said should have appeared in notepad. If it did not work, repeat this step. If the an incorrect words appeared, at this stage don't worry about.
4. - Say “ new paragraph”. What happened? The cursor should have moved down two lines below the line you were previously on
5. - Say “ how is this working”. What happened? Again the word you just said should have appeared
6. - Say “ question mark”. What did you expect to happen? A question mark should have appeared
7. - Say “ tab”. Did what you expect to happen, happen? The equivalent to pressing the tab key should have happened. i.e. The cursor will jump to the right a number of spaces
8. - Say “ new line”. What was the difference between this and saying new paragraph? The cursor should have moved to the next line only
9. - Say “ comma”. A comma should have appeared.
10. - Say “ literal comma” what appeared and why? The word comma appeared because you used the word literal before saying comma. This is the way that you say words that are otherwise commands
11. - Practice saying as many sentences as you feel comfortable with. See which words the speech recognition has the most difficulty with. Don't worry about mistakes
12. - Say “ stop listening”. What happened? The speech recognition dialogue showed off and the blue around the microphone change to black
13. - Close Notepad. There is no need to save anything.

In the previous session, if you made a mistake you just left it as it was. This was so that you could concentrate on only learning how to use speech recognition to dictate without worrying about the mistakes it made or you made. In this session if any mistakes are made you will use speech recognition to correct them.

It is always better to use the speech recognition to correct mistakes rather than doing it yourself, that way the speech recognition learns from its mistakes.

To be able to do the following exercises mistakes need to be made. So tend to slur your dictation words a bit when speaking.

1. - Do what is required to start speech recognition
2. - Say “ open notepad”. Notepad should have started
3. - Say “ we're going to correct some mistakes”. Hopefully some mistakes were made. If they weren't repeat the above text slurring your speech so that a mistake is made.
4. - Say “ correct that”. What happened? A new windows should have opened showing other alternatives to the previous words presented
5. - Say a number associated with the correct text. What happened? The correct text was highlighted (selected)
6. - Say “ we are going to correct some mistakes”. What happened? The previous suggested corrections are replaced with a new set of corrections
7. - Say a number associated with the new correct text.
8. - say “ OK”. What happened? The corrected text replaced the original incorrect text in Notepad
9. - say“ correct we”. How is this different to the previous correction we made? In the previous correction we said “correct that” whereas this time we said correct followed by a specific word, in this case “we”
10. - say “ the committee”. Suggestions should have appeared. Do what is required to change we, to, the committee
11. - Do what is required to commence a new paragraph
12. - say “ centre”. Let's say you wish to spell it the American way
13. - say “ correct that”. Notice none of the suggestions spell it the American way.
14. - say “ spell it”. What appeared? A new dialogue opened allowing you to spell the word
15. - say “ C as in cat”. What appeared? The letter C should have appeared. If it did not, say “ back” and repeat this step
16. - Spell out the rest of the word “center” and then say “ OK”
17. - Have a go at dictating text yourself and correct ALL mistakes WITHOUT using the keyboard or mouse
18. - Say “ Close notepad” what happened? A prompt should have appeared asking if you wish to save the document
19. - Say “ don't save”. The notepad window should have disappeared
20. - Say “ stop listening”

1. - Do what is required to start speech recognition
2. - Say “ open notepad”. Notepad should have started
3. - Dictate about four paragraphs of text, each with a few sentences, so that you have a document to move around in
4. - Say “ move to beginning of document” what happened? The cursor should have moved to the beginning of the document.
5. - Say “ move to end of sentence”. Where did the cursor moves to? The end of the sentence, which could also be the end of a paragraph if the sentences do not have full stops at the end of them.
6. - Say “ what can I say”. What appeared? The speech reference card window should have opened
7. - Say “ dictation”. The dictation section of the speech reference card should have expanded so that you can see commands that can be used within dictation
8. - Read what you have to say to get to: the end and beginning of a word, sentence, paragraph and document, as well as to a specific word within a document
9. - Say “ switch to notepad”. This should have switched to the notepad window
10. - Say “ switch to windows help”. This should have switched you back to the windows help window which is the speech reference card
11. - Do what is required to switch back to notepad
12. - Using what you have learnt above and the speech reference card as a guide do what is required to move to the end and beginning of a word, sentence, paragraph and document, as well as to a specific word within a document via Speech recognition.
13. - Do what is required to exit speech recognition

1. - Do what is required to start speech recognition
2. - Say “ start notepad”. The notepad application should have started
3. - Say “ file”. What happened? The file menu should have been displayed
4. - Note what happens as you say to each of these words. Say “ edit”. Say “ format”. Say “view”. Say “ help”. Say “ about notepad”. Say “ OK” Each of these menu functions should have appeared
5. - Say “ maximize”. What happened? The notepad window should have maximize the full size of the screen. I.e. the same as clicking on the maximise button.
6. - Say “ restore”. This is the same as clicking on the restore button such that the window returns to its original size
7. - What do you think would happen if you were to say “ minimise”? try it. The same as pressing the minimise button. IE the notepad programme is placed on the taskbar
8. - Say “ select notepad”
9. - Say “ open calculator”. What appeared? The calculator program
10. - Say “ open wordpad”. Is this what you expected to happen?
11. - Say “ switch to notepad”. By saying switch to followed by the name of a program you have caused speech recognition to do a equivalent to clicking the program on the taskbar
12. - Try switching between each of the programs, wordpad calculator and notepad
13. - What do you think you would say to close each of the program? You say close followed by the name of the program
14. -exit all the programs and stop speech recognition

1. - If you haven't already done so start voice recognition
2. - Say “ start wordpad”. The wordpad program should have started
3. - Say “ we will see what other functions we can do”. If this text did not appear do what is required to correct it.
4. - Say “ select see”. What happened? The word “see” should have been highlighted.
5. - Say “ underline”. What happened? The word see should have been underlined
6. - What do you think you would have to say to bold the the highlighted word? You would have to say “ bold”. Do so.
7. - Say “ fonts”. What happened? Numbers appeared so that you can select which one of the controls is the font control
8. - As the font control has the number three on it say “ three”, now say “ OK”. What happened? The font control although selected did not drop down, because it is the drop down control to the right of the font control that allows you to select the font. We therefore have a dilemma.
9. - Say“ show numbers”. What happened? Numbers appeared over all the controls that can be clicked on
10. - Note the number which is the control that you would select to select the font. Say that number. Now say “OK” What happened? All the fonts should now be shown
11. - You could try saying the name of the font you wish to choose or use the show numbers function again to select a font. Do what is required to select a font
12. - Try using the show numbers function to do other functions with the wordpad program for
13. - Close the wordpad program and stop using voice recognition

1. - If you have not already done so, start voice recognition
2. - Say “ Open paint”. The paint program should have started.
3. - Say “brushes”. What happened? Numbers appeared for you to select which control you wish to select
4. - Say “ two”. Say “OK”. What appeared? A selection of brushes. Use the say numbers function to select any one of the brushes
5. - Say “ show numbers”. Notice none of the numbers allow you to select the brush in the windows. Say “ cancel”. The numbers disappeared
6. - Say “ mouse grid”. What appeared? A grid appeared on the screen which allows you to say a number for the purpose of clicking and or dragging
7. - Say a number associated with a grid that is within the paint painting screen . What happened? The grid change to a small grid, also with numbers on it
8. - Again Say a number associated with a grid that is within the paint painting screen. You can use this procedure to more accurately position anywhere on the screen
9. - This time say he a number within the paint painting screen and quickly followed it by the word “Click” . What happened? The mouse pointer moved to that position
10. - Experiment with the mouse grid function to move the pointer to other parts of the screen.
11. - If have not already done so select one of the brushes in the paint program.
12. - Use the mouse grid function to select a position on the paint painting screen but rather than saying click say “Mark” . What happened? The mouse grid screen remained open. Use what you have learnt to select a number mouse grid position within the paint painting screen and then say click. What happened? The brush should have been dragged across the paint window
13. - Use what you have learnt to drag other functions within the paint program
14. - Close to paint program and close speech recognition