James Nuttall Blog

I am thoroughly enjoying my new Nexus 7 tablet. Now that I am able to write on my Nexus 7 tablet, I no longer use my iPad for writing.

One of the great things about Android and the Nexus 7 is the ability to choose the keyboard you  like to use. The iPad doesn't have that option. Most of all I am liking the Swype keyboard for writing. The Swype keyboard is from Nuance and is only 99¢ at the Google Play Store. Once installed the Swype keyboard can be used in any program that requires typing.

Swype has word prediction and next word prediction. But I most of all like the 'Swype' action for input. At first swiping is a little confusing. But you can adjust your speed of swiping. A slower swipe gives you time to think about how a word is spelled.
You do not need to be that accurate when swiping. In fact I find that any general outline of the word gives the correct word. Swype generally guess the correct word on the first try. The fact is that you can put in all kinds of wrong letters and Swype will still guess the right word.

When I misspell a word. Swype also automatically corrects my spelling. I especially like that Swype adds double letters automatically. This again helps me to spell correctly. I would highly recommend the Nexus 7 for students who need writing assistance.

The Swype keyboard is also linked to Dragon Dictate. Dragon Dictate is the most accurate speech recognition for tablets. You need a WiFi connection for speech recognition to work. You just hit the dictation key and speak. What you speak is then turned into text.

In addition I am using apps for accessibility.

Most of my writing is in Google Drive with Google Docs. With Google Drive I can share my writing across platforms and also with others. In Google Drive the font size can be easily adjusted for easy viewing. I wrote my first book on the iPad. Dyslexia and the iPad is available at Amazon for 99¢. Now I am writing my second book on the Nexus 7 tablet. This book is a book for parents on promoting reading with their children and using tablets to help with reading. The book will also be valuable for teachers.

QuickOffice allows for the Swype keyboard and also lets you use text-to-speech to read what you have written. QuickOffice also connects to Google Drive.

I am reading my Bookshare books with the Darwin Reader.

When I look up things using the Chrome browser, I use the Voice Aloud Reader to read me the web pages aloud. PDFs can be downloaded to Moon+ Reader and read aloud.

All in all I am liking my Nexus 7 tablet.

# posted by James Nuttall @ 4:35 PM