Ideas for Using the Voice Typing Tool in Google Docs

Voice typing can help students overcome barriers or lead to new learning opportunities. If you are using Google Docs and have access to a computer, laptop, or Chromebook with a microphone, you have everything you need to get started with voice typing in your classroom.

Ideas for Using Voice Typing

• Emerging or developing readers and writers can voice type an assignment or story. Then practice revising and editing skills using traditional keyboard techniques.
• Students with reading or writing challenges, such as dyslexia or dysgraphia, can use voice typing to help them express their ideas without the barrier of their learning disability.
• When teaching the difference between the conventions of spoken versus written language, have students compose short sentences or stories or have a conversation using voice typing. Then collaborate to edit the spoken text so it conforms to the standards of written text.
• Ask students to read aloud a short passage, recording their reading using voice typing. Then, have them compare what was typed to the original text that they read from. This can give students a visual example of their reading accuracy. 
• When studying the traditions of oral storytelling or the drawbacks of gossip, play a game of telephone. As the message is passed around the room, have each student repeat it by voice typing it into a Google Doc before passing it along verbally to the next student. (Find a way to do this so the students can't see what was previously typed by others.) Visually compare how the story changes from the original to the final version (and the versions in between.)

When thinking about voice typing in the classroom, what other instructional uses come to mind?

How to Use the Voice Typing Tool

If you are not familiar with how to use the Voice Typing Tool in Google Docs, watch the one minute video tutorial I recorded below. For a detailed list of voice typing commands, visit Google Docs Help.

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