Web Browsers and Text-to-Speech Solutions?

JZ_o8 asks: "I work for an online education company that needs to be able to accommodate students who, in some cases, are several grades behind in their reading level. We are investigating screen reading technologies that might serve as a supplement for these students. We have considered technologies such as AT&T Natural Voices Text-to-Speech Engine but the process is time-intensive and cumbersome. Development requires a desktop application which encodes text into a web audio format such as MP3. This of course raises issues about page updates and dynamic content which would render any accompanying speech files, obsolete. It seems like the best solution would be browser support, perhaps via a plug-in, that would give the user Text to Speech capabilities. Something like selecting a passage of text with the mouse and right-click to select 'Speak'. Or maybe a server-side solution that would dynamically generate media files for pages on the fly? Or just when they're changed? Does anyone have any suggestions - solutions that I am overlooking. This seems like a useful and logical piece of technology....if it doesn't exist I wonder why not."

Comments

Look at the Lizzard

[OneFix]

Access Mozilla should be a good starting point...even better is that ViaVoice is free for the disabled...

Blind Linux is also a good start...

As a side note, if these students are not disabled, then it might be better to use a browser to teach them to read rather than have it read for them...

mac os

[thesatirist]

In OS X all you have to do is highlight text, go to Services, select Speech, and there you go. This sounds perfect for your needs.

HCIL?

[imsmith]

the Human Computer Interaction Lab at the U of Maryland might be a place to look. I don't know that they have exactly what you are looking for, but the are spending a bit of effort working on interfaces specifically for learning and special access needs and they are designed with commercialization of their products in mind.

Mac OS X has this feature

[panck]

I just selected your article contents in my web browser (happens to be Safari, but this works in any browser) Then I chose the menu item Safari->Services->Speech->Start Speaking Text

Even better, you can enable os X to speak the selected text via a user-defined keystroke, or even all the text underneath the cursor. (in the Speech Preference Panel)

If you're using windows though, I dunno..

Cart before the horse?

[ComputerSlicer23]

Hmmm, there is a little part of me that is feeling like Clifford Stoll right now... What the hell are you doing having illiterate kids doing using a computer? Why don't you have them spend time in a remedial 1 on 1 session to teach them to read, instead of pushing them even further into material they can't read?

I know that your only looking to fufil the request of your customers (in this case the schools), I find it incredibly worrisome, that people are worried about how to get around the fact that the student can't read instead of attempting to actually teach the student to read at the appropriate level. Especially since the ability to read is probably more important then absolutely anything they will learn thru the computer system. Learning to read would enable them to learn anything they want later in life on their own, without some damn computer to read to them....

Kirby

Re:Cart before the horse?

[megabeck42]

I agree with you, the students should be taught how to read instead of being given a crutch to appreciate computer-learning; however, more alarming is the idea that people might propose to have computer educate our children how to read.

In my experience, I've found many people get excited by technology. Better living through chemistry has been replaced with better living through computers. However, teachers are expensive - more expensive than computers and there is a monetary as well as opportunity cost to have a human instructor teach a child to read. That instructor is then unable to teach other students.

Frankly, I think multimedia initiatives and wiring up elementary schools with ethernet and satelite links is ridiculous. I believe that the ultimate goal of school is to teach someone how to learn. This means learning reading, writing, math, scientific reasoning, etc. Most of the basic things taught in elementary school.

For example, the point of writing most papers in primary and secondary school is not to learn the subject matter, but to learn how to research a topic (any topic) and write a coherent, legible paper about it.

Any school library will have more than enough resources more papers than teachers can assign their students. Given the goals for that period in a student's education, a student's ability to learn is not limited by the scope of your average school library and is not further enabled by access to more information through the internet.

Frankly, I think we need to reevaluate priorities. Teachers, after all, are the most versatile educational instrument available. I think we should focus less on computers for students, and more teachers for children. (E.g, Maine providing ibooks for students; Wiring up impoverished third-world villages.)

A single teacher with no other resources can achieve more than ten times his/her salary in educational tools.

P.S. I realize this is semi-offtopic. It's an observation on the use of computers in school and how they are utilized.

MacOS X

[DiSKiLLeR]

MacOS X has this handy little 'services' menu.

Services -> Speech -> Start talking now

Will convert any text highlighted in just about any application into speech.

Its real wierd getting it to say some unix stuff from terminal ;)

Not sure if such a solution exists for windows, however.

Still, letting them play with Apple's and MacOS X would be almost like rewarding them for not being able to read.........

D.

Should be easy enough

[mikecarrmikecarr]

A couple products immediately come to mind; excuse the debian-isms:

1. konqueror with konq-speaker
2. IIRC, you can use emacspeak with the emacs w3 browser... not positive about that though

3. Konqueror is certainly easier (for me) to get running, YMMV.