When I’m teaching I of course aim to make my lectures as accessible as possible. This is for two reasons one being that they should be accessible regardless and the other one being because as someone who talks about ableism all the time, it would be very hypocritical of me not to provide accessible content. Yet one major flaw in my content has been not being able to make it accessible to those who need closed captions. This is because due to my non-standard often speech captioning software does not pick me up.
I do use text-to-speech however as previously discussed in multiple blogs making text-to-speech is often not the most accessible for me as it requires a lot of time to put together. This time I do not get in work time not because work won’t give me the time but because it would take so much time to provide text-to-speech for every lecture that I would not get anything else done.
But this year something had to change and when the academic year came around in September I was determined to make some changes and attended an accessibility workshop. At the end of the workshop I stayed on and thanked them however noted that I still had a problem with captions not picking me up which is where the Digital Accessibility Manager recommended I try Voiceitt.
Voiceitt is a captioning software for non-standard speech. It works by recording phrases and then the more phrases you record the better it is at picking up your speech. I first started by recording the initial recommended 200 phrases and even with just 200 phrases I was already quite impressed by the fact that it picked me up better than anything I’d ever known.
I then started to use this within my teaching so that students had a better idea of what I was saying. It wasn’t perfect but it was better than nothing and I was on my journey to making my teaching more accessible for everyone. I have also started taking a more proactive approach to my teaching in regards to my speech and now when possible make sure I use the microphone acting upon feedback I got from my supervisor when I was undertaking my teaching certificate last year.
Voiceitt is very new software and more so in the UK therefore isn’t perfect. How I currently use Voiceitt within lectures is by getting the extension through Chrome and then presenting my lectures online as the extension is not available any other way. The captions themselves are quite small and whilst I can zoom in the standard size of the captions are very small and would not be accessible to those not within the first two rows when I’m teaching. The captions also do not generate a new speech bubble unless you pause and whilst this is good practice for an individual who talks far too fast to say I have a speech impairment. I find that the pauses have to be quite long for a new speech bubble to generate meaning that captions often run down to the end of the screen where you can no longer see them. However, like I’ve just said maybe getting into the habit of taking more regular pauses wouldn’t be a bad one.
I have now recorded over 600 phrases on Voiceitt reaching the advanced level and I am very impressed with how it picks me up considering nothing ever does. Bearing in mind, I can’t even talk to Alexa!
I am very much enjoying exploring Voiceitt as a tool to enhance my teaching and have found it very emotional. Captions for me have always been an issue and to be honest, are a huge reason why I don’t create video-based content as I know it wouldn’t be a half an hour job due to my speech. But Voiceitt has given me hope and reassurance that I can make accessible content with my speech impairment.
I have more exploring to do with Voiceitt and more recording to do if I want to get the captions to be more accurate to enhance my teaching yet I am pleased with the progress I have made. For now, I am going to keep recording more phrases and exploring other features of Voiceitt so I can find out other ways to use it apart from in my teaching.
When I first contacted AdaptIt support and told them that I was an occupational therapist who wanted to use it for myself they couldn’t believe it and had never come across a health professional using it for themselves. Have you used Voiceitt as a professional and if so what are your thoughts? I’d love to know!
Lastly, thank you to work for investing in Voiceitt and going on this journey with me as well as AdaptIt who are always at the other end of the email for any Vocieitt-related questions.
I spoke to Adapt-IT and they wanted to say a few words.
“Getting to partner with Voiceitt and bring the technology to the UK has been incredible. It hasn’t been a straight road without any roadblocks but to see how the app has transformed peoples’ lives is so rewarding. It has been an absolute pleasure speaking with Georgia and learning about her work and how she uses Voiceitt.”
Thank you for reading,
Georgia x
