A few news items

I was reading a back issue of the Journal for the Reporting and Captioning Professions (April 2010) and three small news briefs caught my attention.

1. “Minnesota considers cutting reporters” On Feb. 6, 2010, the St. Cloud Times reported that a committee has recommended, as a way to cut costs, that the Minnesota Judicial Council replace court reporters with digital audio recording equipment, as well as centralize financial processes and merge judicial districts.

2. “Brevard County faces loss of reporters” Florida Today reported that Brevard County (FL) courtrooms will eliminate funding for court reporting services and expert witnesses to relieve shortfalls in the budget. The deficit is attributed to a combination of inadequate funding from the state legislature, increasing case loads, and a tanking economy.

Sigh ~ Several people have asked me about this development in courtrooms. “Well, technology is going to make court reporters obsolete.” Baloney! I say. So you record the proceedings, now you still have to produce a transcript. Who’s going to do that? A court reporter – duh!

The third news brief is gave my spirits a little boost.

3. “A Bill in Kentucky requires closed captioning in movie theaters” A bill moving through the Kentucky legislature will require movie theaters to expand its offerings of captioned movies. Kentucky State Senator Ray Jones has proposed a new bill that will require closed captioning for the people who are hard of hearing on at least one screen at all cinemas with at least five screens. The bill would also require that captioning be offered in a number of different ways.

Oooo, what a great idea! I hope this trend catches on.

It's not like riding a bike

I took a week off from all things steno related. I had three final exams last week and the first exam was court reporting. So I put the stenograph away and directed all my energy and time to studying for my American Government and Sociology finals. All exams went well and I’m ready for the summer term. Well, almost …

During dinner last night my husband says, “I’ll do the dishes if you want to practice your steno.” Of course I’m going to take him up on his offer. Wouldn’t you? For the record, I couldn’t do this without him. While Jack has always been extremely helpful in all household chores, he’s really going beyond the call of duty these days. Have I mentioned that I’m working full time AND going to college full time? That leaves most of the household duties for Jack to do.

So after dinner I hopped on the stenograph fully expecting to be right where I left off. I paged through my theory book until I arrived at the last chapter we worked on. I put on my headphones and started transcribing the dictation for this particular lesson. Hey, guess what? It’s not like riding a bike. To describe the situation: I sucked! The last lesson we worked on was how to do Q&A. Apparently, my brain had already left the classroom and started on my two-week break before my body did. I didn’t retain much of this lesson as I was really struggling to do it properly last night.

A frustrating evening of practice, but I learned a valuable lesson. Never, ever go a week without practice!

Two week break!

I received an e-mail from my court reporting professor. I received 4 points over 100 on my final. "That's a A+", she said. Yay! The 4 points were from the extra credit sentence that she threw in at the end of the exam.

So, now, I have a two-week break and then it's on to Realtime Theory III. This is a new class that the professors felt that they needed to add to the curriculum. The Court Reporting program at Colorado Technical University is fairly new. My class is the third class to begin this program at CTU. The professors are learning as they go and have already tinkered with the course. While I feel a bit like a guinea pig, I'm glad to be a recipient of their new ideas and changes.

The very first court reporting class started the course using their laptops with CAT, or computer-aided transcription. The professors realized that the students were relying too much on their computers. They were having trouble reading their paper tapes and read-back wasn't as fast as it should have been. So our class is learning the old-fashioned way without computers. This is a great decision as I'm learning to read steno fairly quickly now.

The second change the professors made was to add an additional course ~ Realtime Theory III. The first two court reporting classes went directly from Theory II to speed building. The professors felt these students should have had more time studying and learning the theory as they're having difficulty getting their speed up to 80 words per minute ~ a requirement to graduate from the the speed building course. I'm so glad they made this decision. Some of the chapters were pretty intense and I could use more time studying some of the new lessons we've learned this past quarter.

So as I let my mind, body, and soul take a short break from steno, I'll leave with you a few pictures of the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park, which is where I'm taking my break!

Yellowstone National Park


Yellowstone National Park


Grand Tetons National Park


Grand Tetons National Park

Preparing to exhale

I have just completed the last two chapters of real time court reporting theory for this quarter. They were quite easy, actually. Tonight we review the lessons learned this week and then it’s on to FINALS WEEK!

The three classes I need to prepare for are American Government, Sociology and Court Reporting.

My American Government professor sent out a wonderful study guide for the final, and has been very clear about what will be on the test. I’ve already started to put the study guide to memory so I believe this test will go well.

Sociology is an open book test. I’ve never warmed to the idea of an open book test. Do you really learn anything in a class that has open book tests? I think it makes it too easy for students to simply skate by. I’m looking for a quality education here! I know, I know, this isn’t Harvard, but give us a little credit. Sheesh!

And I have to hand it to our Court Reporting professors. They are holding our feet to the fire in this class. In order to pass the class, you have to get a score of 97% or above on the final test. Eeeek ~ no pressure there! The test will be straight dictation of commonly used words. It makes sense. If you don’t know the most commonly used words in the English language, you’ll never make it as a court reporter. I guess it’s their way of washing out students.

Wish me luck!