On Friday 24th April 2009 Keith Mangan (Stuarts brother) and I visited Scoil san Teresa in Mount Merrion. The children had raised 1500euros for the Stuart Mangan appeal and effectively they had bought the computer that Stuart now uses to communicate to the world. The previous evening I had spent a few hours training my own computer with my own voice so that I could demonstrate to the kids how Stuart communicates with his computer.
On the day and just after the demo with me expecting the kids to be amazed, one 12 year old pointed out that all I was using was voice recgnition software and there was nothing cool about that! As I was syaing 12 year olds are about as hard an audience as it gets.
Stuart joined us by video conference (using skype) and although it was a little choppy he did manage to get everyone doing a Mexican wave. He sent the note below, using voice recognition software to thank the kids:
To the pupils and teachers of 6th class at St Therese's National School, Mount Merrion, Dublin
I hope this will arrive at the right school!! It was really great to see you all on other side of the water chatting to me via the Internet using Skype! Skype is really great-you can call a friend of yours, living miles away in America, while you are on the Internet and you won't run up a huge bill on your mum and dads telephone bill! Isn't that great? As you saw you can get to see the person at the other end as well!
I think Gary and my brother, Keith, explained to you or a bit about my injury and why I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice-activated software. For me it has changed my life. Before my accident I used my computer quite a lot when I was at university, at home surfing the Internet or editing photos or when I was working in the bank. But the computer didn't dictate my life-I was really outdoors type person and loved every sport there was. However, now my life revolves around the computer and how it can help make me more independent as time goes on.
Thanks to you guys and your fundraising I was able to get a new computer which is powerful enough to do all the things I need and do things that Gary and his team at CASL at UCD want it to do. I am very grateful to all of you and I am amazed at your generosity. Stay generous in every way and follow my progress and all the events that are happening, at my website: www.stuartmangan.org
Also, I'd like to thank all the teachers Francis Mullen your six class teacher, Brian Cadigan and Frank Hogan your principal.
Thank you for arranging a visit, and participating in the Mexican wave!
On the day and just after the demo with me expecting the kids to be amazed, one 12 year old pointed out that all I was using was voice recgnition software and there was nothing cool about that! As I was syaing 12 year olds are about as hard an audience as it gets.
Stuart joined us by video conference (using skype) and although it was a little choppy he did manage to get everyone doing a Mexican wave. He sent the note below, using voice recognition software to thank the kids:
To the pupils and teachers of 6th class at St Therese's National School, Mount Merrion, Dublin
I hope this will arrive at the right school!! It was really great to see you all on other side of the water chatting to me via the Internet using Skype! Skype is really great-you can call a friend of yours, living miles away in America, while you are on the Internet and you won't run up a huge bill on your mum and dads telephone bill! Isn't that great? As you saw you can get to see the person at the other end as well!
I think Gary and my brother, Keith, explained to you or a bit about my injury and why I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice-activated software. For me it has changed my life. Before my accident I used my computer quite a lot when I was at university, at home surfing the Internet or editing photos or when I was working in the bank. But the computer didn't dictate my life-I was really outdoors type person and loved every sport there was. However, now my life revolves around the computer and how it can help make me more independent as time goes on.
Thanks to you guys and your fundraising I was able to get a new computer which is powerful enough to do all the things I need and do things that Gary and his team at CASL at UCD want it to do. I am very grateful to all of you and I am amazed at your generosity. Stay generous in every way and follow my progress and all the events that are happening, at my website: www.stuartmangan.org
Also, I'd like to thank all the teachers Francis Mullen your six class teacher, Brian Cadigan and Frank Hogan your principal.
Thank you for arranging a visit, and participating in the Mexican wave!
Kind Regards,
Stuart Mangan
