[Athen] Athen Digest, Vol 18, Issue 2

[Mark Hall]

I represent Caption Mic. Both Terri and Gaier are correct. You can
accomplish similar speech to text results using Dragon and a mask
microphone. 

Where Caption Mic differs is that it also has a caption display. The text
appears as white letters on a black background - exactly like television
captioning. You can choose 2, 3 or 4 lines of scrolling text. Our customers
feel that this method is easier for students to read.

The other major difference is that each word or phrase is being time-coded
and embeds caption commands. The time code and caption commands are not
visible in main view. So the Caption Mic system that is used for an
individual student in the classroom can also be used to caption both live
and pre-produced video. The resulting caption files can also be exported as
caption files for rich media files.

We acknowledge that Caption Mic may not be the correct solution for every
student.

The Caption Mic product sheets can be downloaded from the website and
contain pricing information. I will be exhibiting Caption Mic at the AHEAD
conference later this month. 

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Mark Hall
203-574-5128
mark_hall at comcast.net

-----Original Message-----
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Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 3:00 PM
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Subject: Athen Digest, Vol 18, Issue 2

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Today's Topics:

   1. Caption Mic (Stacy L. Smith)
   2. Re: Caption Mic (Terry Thompson)
   3. Re: Caption Mic (Gaeir Dietrich)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon,  2 Jul 2007 11:29:09 -0500
From: "Stacy L. Smith" <stacylee at ksu.edu>
Subject: [Athen] Caption Mic
To: athen at athenpro.org
Message-ID: <1183393749.468927d56cc0f at webmail.ksu.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

All -

A co-worker asked me to check into Caption Mic (www.captionmic.com). 
Anyone know anything about this?

Thanks,
Stacy

Stacy Smith
Adaptive Technology Specialist, Disability Support Services
532-6441
stacylee at ksu.edu

~~~~~~~~~~~~

One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to practice the Art of
Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to
train.

--Morehei Ueshiba



------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 10:01:27 -0700
From: "Terry Thompson" <tft at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Caption Mic
To: "'Access Technologists in Higher Education Network'"
	<athen at athenpro.org>
Message-ID: <200707021701.l62H1aXK016200 at smtp.washington.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="US-ASCII"

I don't see anything on their website about pricing, although maybe I'm just
overlooking it. If it's expensive, I would think you could set up a similar
system with Dragon Naturally Speaking and any of the avilable "stenomask"
products, such as: 

http://www.stenomask.com/pages/sylencer.html
http://www.talkincorporated.org/
http://martelelectronics.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Cod
e=MM

This has become a fairly common practice among stenographers, and the masks
work quite well at muffling the voice. They also provide a consistent
accoustic environment so users with trained voice profiles can use it
reliably across a variety of accoustic settings. 

One cautionary note is that echoing the speaker's speach is a learnable
skill, but not many people have it innately. You could do this with students
acting as voice captioners but they'd have to have the aptitude, and their
becoming proficient would require training and practice.  

Terry

Terry Thompson
Technology Specialist, DO-IT
University of Washington
tft at u.washington.edu
206/221-4168
http://www.washington.edu/doit



> -----Original Message-----

> From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org 

> [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On Behalf Of Stacy L. Smith

> Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 9:29 AM

> To: athen at athenpro.org

> Subject: [Athen] Caption Mic

> 

> All -

> 

> A co-worker asked me to check into Caption Mic (www.captionmic.com). 

> Anyone know anything about this?

> 

> Thanks,

> Stacy

> 

> Stacy Smith

> Adaptive Technology Specialist, Disability Support Services

> 532-6441

> stacylee at ksu.edu

> 

> ~~~~~~~~~~~~

> 

> One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to 

> practice the Art of Peace. Heaven is right where you are 

> standing, and that is the place to train.

> 

> --Morehei Ueshiba

> 

> _______________________________________________

> Athen mailing list

> Athen at athenpro.org

> http://athenpro.org/mailman/listinfo/athen_athenpro.org

> 





------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 10:14:50 -0700
From: "Gaeir Dietrich" <gdietrich at htctu.net>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Caption Mic
To: "'Access Technologists in Higher Education Network'"
	<athen at athenpro.org>
Message-ID: <000001c7bccc$7ff80760$9a821299 at htctu.fhda.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

Just some thoughts...

My first question would be, How is this better than just having someone
using Dragon? From what I can determine, that is essentially the solution
they are selling. I'm sure you get a package with the steno mask, the
program, the computer, and other electronic components, but I'd sure want to
compare their price to the price for those items separately.

Even if you get their equipment, you still need to hire the voice captioner,
and in the end, your accuracy is based entirely on that person--how well the
person trains the voice recognition software, how thoroughly s/he prepares
the program by training specific vocabulary and adding unusual names or
subject-specific vocabulary, etc.

As with all voice recognition systems, you have the issue of what happens if
the captioner has a cold or allergies or any other condition that affects
the voice. Such temporary changes in the voice all affect recognition, and a
knowledgeable user will have separate voice profiles for such conditions.

So my second question would be, Do they have a list of trained captioners to
refer you to or are you entirely on your own to find someone? Do they have
materials that you can use to train a captioner or are you on your own for
that as well? (As a long-time Dragon trainer, I can tell you that voice
recognition is not intuitive, and although I love Dragon, I'd have to say
that lack of really good training materials is one of the biggest issues for
most people with using it.)

And, of course, you still have the biggest issue whenever you use any sort
of in-class captioning: Will the captioner be the interface for the student
if the student has a question? For students who rely entirely on sign
language, the interpreter provides two-way communication.

******************************************************
Gaeir (rhymes with "fire") Dietrich
High Tech Center Training Unit of the
California Community Colleges
De Anza College, Cupertino, CA
www.htctu.net
408-996-6043


-----Original Message-----
From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On
Behalf Of Stacy L. Smith
Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 9:29 AM
To: athen at athenpro.org
Subject: [Athen] Caption Mic

All -

A co-worker asked me to check into Caption Mic (www.captionmic.com). 
Anyone know anything about this?

Thanks,
Stacy

Stacy Smith
Adaptive Technology Specialist, Disability Support Services
532-6441
stacylee at ksu.edu

~~~~~~~~~~~~

One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to practice the
Art of
Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place
to
train.

--Morehei Ueshiba

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Athen mailing list
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http://athenpro.org/mailman/listinfo/athen_athenpro.org





------------------------------

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End of Athen Digest, Vol 18, Issue 2
************************************