Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 11 Student Edition [Old Version]

The verification process is a bit of a pain. Basically, you have to select your school from a list of choices. You have to fill in your name, and as faculty I had to select which department Im in. It then asked me to send a PDF file of my school ID with the current date. Other options would be (as faculty, I cant speak for students) a recent pay stub or a letter from HR verifying my employment. I didnt have any of these readily available, so I submitted the online form without them. I was careful to use my EDU e-mail address. I then received a message to this EDU address stating that I needed to submit the above information before I would receive the necessary serial number. From reading other reviews, I decided simply to wait. Sure enough, the next day I received the serial number without having taken any further action. With the serial number I installed the product without any hassles. In other words, the only information I ended up submitting was the name of my school, my name, and my EDU e-mail address. Nothing more. The process took 24 hours. Ive used version 10 for a couple of years and I think it was version 8 that I used before that. Im happy with version 11 so far. It navigates both Explorer and Firefox better than version 10 and I like the text entry for Gmail. Accuracy is roughly the same or better, but overall speed is faster than before. Some commands are still cumbersome but overall this product is an improvement. I use a high-quality microphone which is important, as well as learning the software, by which I mean speaking clearly. Check out Emicrophones.com for great mic and soundcard information. I use the Sennheiser ME3 which is really expensive. The cheapie provided will work also, but serious users will need an upgrade eventually, and the mic lasts forever. And make sure you have the recommended specifications for your computer. Goodluck!

Very poor service. the product I cannot rate because I could never use it. I bought it, tried to jump through the rediculiuos hoops to get a code and never could. Called customer service which took forever to get a hold of. I finally got somebody with an american sounding name that could hardly speak english. They wanted more money to give me a code. I imediately sent their product back.

my daughter is doing great with this product. She even started to dictate a story in addition to her homework. It really is amazing how quickly you can train dragon to your voice.

Horrible and a huge waste of time. Bought it for my son and even after training the software for several hours to recognize his voice it was at best 50% accurate. Years ago I worked on a car navigation system that used speech recognition. I worked on the map database but used the system often doing testing. It, like Dragon, works best on a adult male voice. But even that system nearly 20 years ago recognized womens and childrens voices much better than Dragon. Oh and the included headset is junk too. When you complain they tell you to buy a better headset for another $100 or more. Save your time and money this thing is junk. Oh and even on my voice it was only about 70% accurate. junk junk junk

it was a gift

Unfortunately, all posted links to the education validation on the Nuance site are broken. What IS this mysterious process anyway? Are part-time graduate students eligible for the Premium 11 Student version? Thanks.

the education verification was simple. If you have a campus e-mail address and ID, the process takes less than a day. Since I have these things I cant comment on the process If you dont.Im currently getting used to the software but it seems to be a life saver.

This is a fantastic program. It can open doors, not only to the disabled, but to people from all walks of life. We can think much faster than we can write, or type. This program helps to corral, and then organize our thoughts. Im using it for school right now, but who knows? I might write a book later. I never saw myself as an author, but this program makes it possible. Now that I am able to write it, it will be up to the population to see if they are interested in what I have to say. Every child, and student, should have this program.

Dont Buy until verification process is changed. This is speech recognition software that we buy and want to use not a top secret or covert spy stuff give me a break amd yourself one dont buy until changes are made. I bought product on 01/02/2012 and 1st had to buy more ram. 2nd tried to activate as directed as a charity only to find that only charities in UK can activate (the email We are unable to determine that your charity meets the publishers requirements for this program. Therefore, we are not able to approve your request for serial number(s). Please direct any questions about this policy to Nuance.) Ok I am also a full-time student and tried to use student email as instructed by Nuance only to be told that by the 3rd party my that my code was rejected because of prior use. The program itself may be the best thing since sliced bread but I may never know. Twenty something days later, I now have the serial number, I like the product, it will take awhile for me to learn to use it but it will be a help in my studies.

I have nerve damage to my right hand due to a work injury and at 53 I have had to rethink my life and go back to college so that I will be able to work again in the future. I purchased Dragon Naturally Speaking Premium 11 Student Edition the end of December. There was no problem at all getting the registration key, all you need is your college email address. The instructions tell you it will take 24 hours, but I received my key in less than 30 minutes. It takes a while to get your voice profile setup. For some reason the quick voice training didnt work and I had to read a passage from a list of books. That took about 30 minutes and then I was off and running. While the program doesnt get every word you say perfect every time, I would say its 98% correct most of the time. This version included a very nice headset with microphone and I have been able to write my first 3 essays in less time that it would have taken me any other way. I speak it types, I tell it to open Word, it opens Word. Its like Im dictating to a person and they are doing all the hard work for me. It is an amazing program and is worth every penny. I highly recommend this program for anyone with a disability and even for those without one.