Plover study group starting in May?

[Mel Chua]

Short: Would folks be interested in a Plover study group (with actual meetings in realtime) starting perhaps mid-May?

Longer: The idea would be to take the current steno 101 classes and break them down into finer chunks, expanded with more exercises -- and then tackle a specific chunk each week, with people working through the same sort of "homework" together while commiserating over Google Plus (or something similar).

I'm personally still struggling with lesson 2 (grad school == no time, so I am slow) but know I'd practice much more regularly if I had a scheduled time to hold myself accountable to. Since this would take a little time to prep, I'm thinking that sometime-in-May might make a logical time to start.

Thoughts?

--Mel

[Mirabai Knight]

Can I post this to the blog as well? I think it's a fantastic idea, and I'd love to be involved.

[Michael W]

Oh my goodness YES PLEASE. This would provide just the kick I
need to actually get started.

How would you conduct meetings? Over Skype or IRC or something?

--
Timeout for now Houston,
_mike

[Matt Thomas]

Google hangout?
Sent in Transit (mst)

[Mel Chua]

Google hangout?

This is what I'm thinking -- seems the most scaleable and platform-independent, and this is already a Google group.

And Mirabai, totally feel free to float the idea on the blog -- once we have a few more people interested we can figure out scheduling and how to break down the first lessons.

[Stan Sakai]

Mirabai,

Can I teach steno lessons!!?? I would so love to!

-Stan

[Mauricio]

Yes I would. Very interested.

[Henry Foulds]

I think that would be fantastic. Would it also be possible to record the
sessions as well, in case one of us misses them?

Henry

[Mirabai Knight]

We'll have accessibility challenges with these classes, considering
that one of our prospective members is hard of hearing and another is
low vision. But accessibility challenges are my bread and butter, so I
say bring 'em on. Perhaps we could conduct the sessions in voice (and
record them for later review/distribution), but with live remote CART,
provided by me when Stan is leading the sessions, and by Stan when I'm
leading the sessions? Maybe we could switch off half and half each
class, or maybe just alternate classes. What do you say, Stan?

[Henry Foulds]

Could I also say that there is a new plug-in for Google+ that improves
accuracy for those with low vision.

Let me see if I can find out more.

Henry

[Danishkadah]

Hi

I am interested in this study group, how to join?
I am deafened (with profound deafness) so voice conversation won't work for me, need text.
hope the study will start from installation and keyboard things
I'll be using Sidewinder X4, did tried few words in past but not sure how to place finger properly.

looking forward to join you.

Akram

On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 10:20 AM, <plove...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

  Today's Topic Summary

Group: http://groups.google.com/group/ploversteno/topics

• Plover study group starting in May? [4 Updates]
• Mapping to the QWERTY keyboard -- what to do with the SPACE BAR [1 Update]

 Plover study group starting in May?

Mauricio <mau.bus...@gmail.com> Mar 13 09:00AM -0700  

Yes I would. Very interested.
 
 


 

"Henry Foulds" <henrye...@gmail.com> Mar 13 04:05PM  

I think that would be fantastic. Would it also be possible to record the
sessions as well, in case one of us misses them?
 
Henry


 

Mirabai Knight <askel...@gmail.com> Mar 13 12:20PM -0400  

We'll have accessibility challenges with these classes, considering
that one of our prospective members is hard of hearing and another is
low vision. But accessibility challenges are my bread and butter, so I
say bring 'em on. Perhaps we could conduct the sessions in voice (and
record them for later review/distribution), but with live remote CART,
provided by me when Stan is leading the sessions, and by Stan when I'm
leading the sessions? Maybe we could switch off half and half each
class, or maybe just alternate classes. What do you say, Stan?
 


 

"Henry Foulds" <henrye...@gmail.com> Mar 13 04:28PM  

[Stan Sakai]

You idea for the live session sounds great! Is there something like
Blackboard Collaborate available wherein you can have a webcamming
presenter and have people sign into the room and talk in the chatroom?
I think this would work really well if we have the video feed going
and just post a link up where the streamtext captioning will be. How
are we to address our different steno styles (since mostly everyone
here is learning your theory and dictionary)?

And since some of the folks here are more advanced (I'm assuming) than
others, are we going to teach the whole thing top to bottom
sequentially or make it more of a Q and A format style session?

-S

[Maryellen Nicole]

You can use gotomeeting for the "classroom" virtually.

[Mirabai Knight]

I really want to do the Plover study group thing, but I think May is going to be too early for me, especially since I don't yet know my summer schedule. Is there any way we can bump it back to July? That way I'll have run my half-day workshop with beginning Plover users at PyGotham and I'll have a little bit better idea of where novices might tend to get hung up.

[Mel Chua]

On Wednesday, April 4, 2012 12:16:31 AM UTC-4, Mirabai Knight wrote:

I really want to do the Plover study group thing, but I think May is going to be too early for me, especially since I don't yet know my summer schedule. Is there any way we can bump it back to July? That way I'll have run my half-day workshop with beginning Plover users at PyGotham and I'll have a little bit better idea of where novices might tend to get hung up.

Yes, totally -- that would be better scheduling for me as well (but that's totally me being selfish).

So, last week Mirabai and I sat down in new york and hacked through a lot of pedagogy stuff for plover -- a concept map to see how various skills were connected, going through why certain skills would be hard to learn (things can be hard to learn in different ways), and so on. Mirabai, is there a way we could post those notes out here? My camera phone, as it turns out, is not sufficiently high-resolution to be legible...

I need to play with Fly (after I finish my last 3 papers for the semester) to see where we are with the drilling aspect of getting keyboard muscle memory down, but after that I think I've got the first 4 exercises in mind, in a simple "edit this text file" sort of format (vim users, think about vimtutor).

1. moving and removing -- using "arrow" keys and various forms of "delete" and "backspace" (why put this first? because it'll let you navigate a document and recover from mistakes without taking your hands out of steno mode, and the goal is to have you learn steno... in steno.)

2. the individual-character alphabet (why put this second? again, because it'll let you type anything in steno while staying in steno mode, so you can fill in all the gaps for chords you don't know, and start -- slowly, painfully -- using 100% steno for text entry as quickly as possible... and then start backfilling in your ability to do speed by successively getting better and better at adding chords.)

3. punctuation and "formatting" (linebreaks, tabs, etc)

4. numbers and really really common words ("the" "and")

not sure what happens after that but we can figure it out then.

What we need for #1 (moving and removing) is a text file riddled with extra characters, words, lines, etc. to delete -- things that are obviously out of place. I was going to make this, and then I realized I ought to write my papers so I pass classes this semester first. :-) So here's a task for anyone who wants to take it:

* download a text file of your favorite book on project gutenberg
* snip it to perhaps a 300-word excerpt
* start adding random characters, words, phrases, sentences, lines, etc to it! basically, add "trash" to the document because the exercise is going to be "navigate through this document and delete all the extra things."
* share that textfile here

(note that multiple people could totally do this, and we would end up with several different practice texts for moving-and-removing, which would be even better)

...and at that point, we can ask mirabai/stan/someone-who-knows-steno to write up a little lesson on how to use "arrow keys" and "delete keys" and then practice a lot.

--Mel

[Michael W]

Hm. You bring up an interesting point. At risk of derailing the
conversation, how good is stenography for *editing* as opposed to
*writing*?

I've always imagined stenography as like a fire hose, great for
getting a stream of new input in, but not so much for
reforming/reshaping existing text.

Has anyone used plover/steno for editing large bodies of text?

3 hours ago, Mel Chua wrote:

--
See you on the airwaves!
_mike

[Mirabai Knight]

On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 1:20 PM, Michael W <mwi...@uccs.edu> wrote:
> Hm. You bring up an interesting point. At risk of derailing the
> conversation, how good is stenography for *editing* as opposed to
> *writing*?
>
> I've always imagined stenography as like a fire hose, great for
> getting a stream of new input in, but not so much for
> reforming/reshaping existing text.
>
> Has anyone used plover/steno for editing large bodies of text?

I have, and it's great. I use Vim with Plover, which is like double
barreling the efficiency. For example, while "save document" in Vim is
three keystrokes (colon, s, enter) or four keystrokes (escape, colon,
s, enter) depending on whether you're in insert or command mode, I've
made the following dictionary definition:

"STPHA*EUF": "{#Escape}:w{#Return}{#Control_L(End)A } ",

This way it takes only one stroke, regardless of whether you're in
command or insert mode, to save the document. I've also got it set up
to go to the end of the document and enter insert mode, but that's
just because it's usually the most useful thing for transcription
work, which is what I mainly use Vim and Plover for. Obviously if
you're editing stuff in the middle of the document you can omit that
last bit.

Metacommands on a qwerty keyboard (like Control-C and Control-V) are
difficult ergonomically, and people who use them a lot can develop RSI
problems. On the steno keyboard, you never have to deform your hand
shape to enter those commands. I use:

"KHR-BG": "{#Control_L(c)}",
"KHR*F": "{#Control_L(v)}",

Again, single stroke commands, all from the home row position of the
steno keyboard. Of course everything on the steno keyboard is the home
row position (except arguably D and Z, though even then you're just
reaching your pinky out; you're not actually moving the rest of your
fingers).

I do a lot of navigating and editing using Vim commands on the steno
keyboard, and then when I want to go back down to the bottom of the
document and keep writing, I use:

"SR-RS": "{#Control_L(End(Escape))A }",

(I could also use GA in Vim, but the Control-End is the standard "end
of document" command for lots of programs besides Vim. If I'm using
one of them, I can just take the A out of the definition and then it
works just the same way.)

I've also started using the steno machine to navigate web pages. I've got:

"SPA*US": "{#Control_L(Alt_L(g))}",

to launch a Chrome window (Control-Alt-g is my shortcut for Chrome),

"TA*BT": "{#Alt_L(Tab(Tab))}",

for Alt-Tab

"KHR*T": "{#Control_L(w)}",

(close tab in Chrome)

"KHR*BG": "{#Control_L(k)}",

(search in Chrome)

And then, of course, I've got my keyboard commands to help with transcription:

"KH-FG": "{#`^}",

to back up three seconds in Winamp

and

"TR-RL": "{#|}",

for play/pause. Those are defined via Winamp's Global Hotkeys.

So yeah, basically everything you can do in several strokes or with a
meta-key command in a text editor you can do in one stroke from a
steno keyboard, without twisting your fingers out of alignment. The
one-stroke commands are also more mnemonically useful, because they
can be defined as syllables. Most of the ones I've listed above are
mapped mnemonically to the metakey plus key stroke name, just because
I'm so used to them that I think of commands in terms of control-c and
control-v rather than copy and paste. But in a program where you know
what you want to do but don't have an instant association with the
hotkey for it, you could make up a steno brief that's much more
memorable than the hotkey. Say if you wanted to start a recording in
some audio software -- you could make up a brief like TKRA*UD for
"record audio" and map it to whichever hotkey the program had assigned
to that command.

So, anyway, in short -- steno is great for editing as well as for text
entry. By the way, I composed this email using Plover and my steno
machine. (':

[Margaret Synnott]

July would suit me much better. What time GMT would the meetings likely be?

Mags

[Mauricio]

I hope you don't mind that I've added your usage tips to the cheat
sheet on the wiki.
http://stenoknight.com/wiki/Plover_Cheat_Sheet

It seems to me that having examples that have been proven to be fairly
comfortable and intuitive to use would benefit someone who is looking
for ideas on how set up their own system.

Mau

On May 2, 1:37 pm, Mirabai Knight <askelad...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Mirabai Knight]

That's still to be determined. So far we've got a bunch of people on
the East Coast of the USA, at least one on the West Coast, someone in
England, and someone in Pakistan. So it might be a bit tricky to
coordinate everyone. I'm working 8 am to 12pm EST Monday through
Friday, but I'm pretty open on afternoons and weeknights, and if it
turns out that weekends work better for everyone, I'm pretty much open
there too. At the very least, we'll be posting the transcripts if not
the audio of all the sessions, so anyone who misses the live classes
will probably be able to pick up on them the next day.

[Henry Foulds]

Hello!

Oooh, someone in England - would love to chat with other stenos in the UK!

If we have any PowerPoints, other presentations, documents to refer
to, could we please have this in accessible PDF or MS Word.

Are they going to be audio only? If not, I think it's possible to
record the video as well.

Still looking into accessible hangouts in terms of visual impairment
for both myself, and I think Mirabai said there was someone else with
a VI.

Henry

[Tim Nevits]

Can I ditto the two notes below?  I took a steno class last semester (which I had to drop), but and can now type most words I want to on my steno machine, but I *cannot* figure out how to do a carriage return to save my life.  This made me frustrated and I gave up practicing.

If anyone documents basic keystrokes like this in steno, please add to to your list of people who could use it!

-Tim

On Wednesday, May 2, 2012 at 10:19 AM, Mel Chua wrote:

1. moving and removing -- using "arrow" keys and various forms of "delete" and "backspace" (why put this first? because it'll let you navigate a document and recover from mistakes without taking your hands out of steno mode, and the goal is to have you learn steno... in steno.)

[Mirabai Knight]

Oh, sorry! Yes, I'm definitely going to write an article on this
subject. Mel has convinced me that these are sine qua nons for any
self-taught steno students. Here's a couple just for now. These should
work with both the most recent Windows version of Plover and the Linux
version of Plover. Obviously you'll have to take out comments after
the lines (the -- and everything following the comma) before you paste
these into your dictionary.

General Navigation:

"R-R": "{#Return}", -- For some reason #Enter doesn't work, but #Return does
"TA*B": "{#Tab}",
"S-P": "{^ ^}", -- Press the space key
"TPEFBG": "{#Escape}",
"STPH-R": "{#Left}", -- These directions are all just arrow keys.
"STPH-B": "{#Right}",
"STPH-G": "{#Down}",
"STPH-P": "{#Up}",
"STPH-RB": "{#Control_L(Left)}", -- "left by word" in most programs
"STPH-BG": "{#Control_L(Right)}", -- "right by word" in most programs
"PW-FP": "{#BackSpace}",
"TK-LS": "{^^}", -- don't auto-space before the next word
"SKWRAURBGS": "{#Return}{#Return}{^}{-|}", -- Make a new paragraph and
capitalize the next letter

For CARTing:

"TP*EPL": "{#Return}{#Return}FEMALE STUDENT:{ }{ }{ }{ }{ }{-|}",
"PHA*EL": "{#Return}{#Return}MALE STUDENT:{ }{ }{ }{ }{ }{-|}",
"PRO*F": "{#Return}{#Return}PROFESSOR:{ }{ }{ }{ }{ }{-|}",
"KR*T": "{#Return}{#Return}>>{^ ^}{-|}",

[Mirabai Knight]

> So, last week Mirabai and I sat down in new york and hacked through a lot of
> pedagogy stuff for plover -- a concept map to see how various skills were
> connected, going through why certain skills would be hard to learn (things
> can be hard to learn in different ways), and so on. Mirabai, is there a way
> we could post those notes out here? My camera phone, as it turns out, is not
> sufficiently high-resolution to be legible...

http://stenoknight.com/plover/stenoconcepts.png
http://stenoknight.com/plover/stenohardness.png

That was an incredibly productive and fruitful session. My brain is
still reeling from it (in an extremely good way). :'D

[Tim Nevits]

Oh my gosh, this is amazing! Thank you very much!!!
-Tim

[Mel Chua]

Thanks, Mirabai! Now, before I forget, a key to the shorthand in the images...

http://stenoknight.com/plover/stenoconcepts.png

This is a concept map showing the connections between the topics (the things in boxes - skills and concepts) that make up the ability to do steno at a basic level. You can see strong (double-lines) and weak (single-lines) connections between topics. Clockwise from top, they are...

1. EC - error correction (delete, backspace, arrow keys, etc)
2. CUST - customizing your own dictionary
3. CORE - using a basic "core" dictionary (the one that comes pre-loaded with Plover)
4. EXCEPT - dealing with exceptions to phonetic rules
5. PHON->CHORDS - mapping phonemes (auditory) to chords (on the keyboard)
6. READ - reading steno shorthand (being able to look at a brief for a word, immediately chord that word on your own keyboard, and have a good guess as to what that word might be in English)
7. THERE ARE PHONEMES! - breaking down words into phonemes instead of letters
8. KeyBoarD LAYOUT - what keys on the qwerty (sidewinder) keyboard map to what letters on the steno keyboard; mostly building muscle memory.
9. ALPHabet - the ability to type individual letters on the steno keyboard (vital at the start when you don't know the briefs for many words).

The numbers by each box (for instance, 3/3/6 (9) right above the "EC" block) are totals for strong links, weak links, total links, and a weighted sum (2*strong + 1*weak) for each concept. This is to help us see which concepts are the most centrally connected, which is sometimes surprising - for instance, I didn't expect "READing stenographic shorthand" to be almost half as "important" (by number of connections) than being able to use the delete key! (in "Error Correction")

The orange highlights were things we tagged as "enduring understanding" -- if you study steno and only remember three things, the most important ones to remember are...

1. Dictionary construction - the connection between EXCEPT(ions to the phonetic system) and CUST(omizing your own dictionary)
2. Transliteration - the connection between THERE ARE PHONEMES! and mapping PHONemes-to-CHORDS.
3. KeyBoarD LAYOUT - skill as described above.

 

http://stenoknight.com/plover/stenohardness.png

This is a description of "why these concepts are difficult to learn" -- it uses the same topics as listed above, which you can probably figure out by reading the descriptions. For instance, the concept of phonemes is really easy to learn (I think most of us "get it" when we first figure out what stenography is). In contract, error correction is inert (you can learn the "delete" key, and then totally forget what the chord is when you're in the middle of transcribing something) and tacit (one of those things you're just expected to "pick up" somehow -- it's so natural to advanced practitioners that it's easy to forget that beginners need to be taught about it!).

Sometimes, knowing why something is difficult to learn can help you figure out how to practice it. For instance, learning the alphabet is hard because it relies on skill -- the muscle memory of learning the letters -- so drilling over and over is probably a good way to learn that. However, the same kind of drilling may not be the best way to learn how to read steno syntax.

This is what I've been doing for the past several months instead of learning steno. Turns out pedagogy classes in graduate school are useful. :)

[leeo]

Learning a shorthand system involves the same facility humans use to learn a (spoken) language.  Indeed, it is a sub-language to the target language.  Stenography systems have been around since the time of Ceasar -- for instance the "&" symbol was an ancient shorthand symbol for "and".  Many of Shakespeare's plays would not have survived if some audience members did not clandestinely record spoken text during a performance.  --Lee