Enhance Learning with Otter: A Stanford Tutorial on Digital Note-Taking (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: This is a Stanford Learning Lab tutorial showing how to incorporate digital note-taking by creating a transcript of your lessons and meetings using Otter. We'll discuss the benefits of transcription software, when and how to use them, and go through the various features of Otter. Technology has come a long way, and natural language processors can detect and record human speech very accurately. We see this in transcription softwares, auto-generated captions on videos, and speech-to-text applications on computers and smartphones. We can use these technologies to improve your experiences with lectures, lessons, and meetings. If you've ever felt like you've sat in a lecture, took copious notes, and still not retained any information about the lecture, this may be because we struggle to record every word being said while also comprehending it. Additionally, lectures and meetings are often long and convey way more information than we can actually remember afterwards. Having that meeting or lecture automatically transcribed gives you a verbatim version of that experience that you can revisit, but also allows you to take more judicious notes during the actual meeting or lecture. Otter is one transcription software that you can use. Otter can be downloaded and accessed on PCs, Macs, phones, and tablets. Before we walk through how to use Otter, please remember that you should always ask permission to record a lesson or meeting prior to recording. Under the My Conversations tab in Otter, you see a log of all of your transcriptions. When you want to record a new conversation, you can click on the blue microphone icon in the bottom right-hand corner. Then, it will start transcribing in real-time what is being heard. Currently, it is transcribing what I am currently saying, and you'll notice that it is pretty accurate even with real-time transcription. You can stop the recording by pressing the stop button, and then this audio will be quickly processed into an official transcript by Otter. Let's try this out on an actual video, like this TED Talk. I'm going to play a section of the video, and then hit the blue microphone icon on Otter to record a transcript in real-time.

Speaker 2: Your brain can change in three very basic ways to support learning, and the first is chemical. Your brain actually functions by transferring chemical signals between brain cells, what we call neurons, and these trigger a series of actions and reactions.

Speaker 1: Okay, I've now stopped this recording, and now it will be automatically processed, which can take a few moments. Let's set the video aside and look at the new note that has been added at the top to go over some interactive features. We can change the title to something like TED Talk number 5. You'll also notice everything is dated and timestamped throughout the transcript, so if you know you need to revisit a certain part of a lecture or meeting, that makes it easier to navigate to. You can also click on keywords if you want to highlight every instance of a concept, such as chemical. This can be useful if you only want to listen to audio discussing a targeted concept. You also see that it says Speaker 1, so if there are multiple speakers, Otter is pretty good at separating who said what in the transcript. Another great feature is that you can play the audio back and hear the original speakers, so you have another way of experiencing your lessons again. Let's try this out.

Speaker 2: So this audio can be sped up or slowed down to whatever your preference by going to the bottom left-hand corner and clicking on 1x, and you'll see the option of slowing down or speeding up the audio. If you choose to speed up the audio, you'll see that the audio is slowed down,

Speaker 1: and if you choose to speed up the audio, you'll see that the audio is slowed down. We hope this tutorial provided information on how to effectively use audio transcription software like Otter to enhance your classroom and academic experience. Otter offers convenient ways to store audio in accessible formats while facilitating judicious rather than excessive note-taking. If you want to discuss digital note-taking or developing a reliable note-taking approach with a learning specialist, please contact the Stanford Learning Lab. Thank you for listening. www.otter.ai