Today we went over digital tools, specifically accessibility tools and software. I am fairly familiar with speech-to-text and text-to-speech software as they are things I had experimented with when I was still in high school. It is interesting to me how most devices and software like Microsoft Word have built in tools now when I specifically remember struggling to find any speech-to-text applications that were both free and comprehensive.

We also looked into tools for comprehension, paraphrasing, and summarising text. I found the usefulness of the ones I tested to be somewhat questionable; as English is my specification, I think that it can be difficult to summarise or rephrase text without losing some of it’s original meaning. Especially when older or more complicated text is considered as the meaning of words can vary greatly between time periods. I feel that tools which can be used to highlight specific terms or words to give definitions would be more helpful rather than putting entire passages through a program.