VWII Reflection

I was very anxious and motivated to start VWII. After VWI, I was on a roll! Everything was going great with the open mic and I was slowly but surely getting comfortable with Dragon. I was excited to get started with the voice mask. Initially, I was under the impression that getting used to and adapting to the mask would be easy. I set everything up with ease and one of the 1st things that I dictated was my Week 1 discussion post. The mask was working well with Dragon and seemed to be hearing me. One of the 1st obvious challenges that I faced with the mask was breathing and getting used to the feel of it on my face. I discovered that the best way to take in a deep breath is to lift the mask downwards so that my nose is exposed and take …show more content…
At times focusing too much on my breathing caused me to lose focus on what I was hearing and I am still working on that. A fellow student suggested a tip, of making a fish face before applying the mask and that seems to work great. This tip was definitely beneficial because by making that face, enough skin was in the mask and that made enunciation a bit easier. As the weeks progressed, I did start to feel some frustration. I was, still am and will continue to do a lot of training and with the mask. I realized that training this new voice model would be a serious challenge! This certainly did not help when I had a cold. I understand why voice writers have different profiles for when they are sick. Having a stuffed nose drastically changes the way you speak and pronounce words. I always knew this but until now I didn’t realize just how much. There were days that I felt that the mask was not hearing me. I would play back something that I got wrong and to me it sounded clear. I was having a hard time understanding (and still am) why sometimes I have good days with the mask and I feel like it understands me. My accuracy scores are great and I am feeling encouraged. Then the next day it’s like we …show more content…
To be honest, I was feeling a bit discouraged at that point. I didn’t have the same feeling I had with the mask at this point that I had had with the open mic. My accuracy wasn’t as good with the mask. I was thinking “Maybe I am not as good at this as I thought.” As I finished my first dictation in a long time with the mask, I was waiting for the accuracy score to read 94 or 95% because that is what I am used to seeing. I was very pleasantly surprised to see scores or 98% or better! This was the encouragement that I needed. I worked with the Open Mic for the rest of the week and then switched back to the mask with a lot more confidence. I now plan on alternating weeks between the mask and the open