--- Forwarded Message from "David Flores" <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2007 09:32:49 -0400
>From: "David Flores" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: "Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum"   
<[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: #8648 Text-to-Speech and Voice Recognition?
>References: <[log in to unmask]>
>In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>

We had a physically disabled student at Loyola a couple of semesters back. She
suffered from limited mobility and could not successfully type. We installed the
Spanish version of Dragon Naturally Speaking for her to use. It's a pretty
impressive program that allows fully hands-free control of the machine. Fairly
intuitive and very neat. My biggest concern is that the student begins by
training the program to recognize her own voice, so I worry that in doing so she
would be constraining her ability to further improve second-language
pronunciation, given that her computer expects words to be pronounced in a
certain manner that may not have been optimal in the first place. I believe that
the student did not, in fact, re-enroll in the Spanish class, though, and never
actually used the system for productive work. I would have liked to have
followed her progress with the system, though. I think much could be learned
from it. 

David Flores
Director: Language Learning Center
Loyola College in Maryland
4501 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21210
Ph: (410) 617-5230
Fax: (410) 617 2859

>>> LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]> 10/2/2007 3:51 PM >>>
--- Forwarded Message from "Carly J. Born" <[log in to unmask]> ---

>To: LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]>
>From: "Carly J. Born" <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Text-to-Speech and Voice Recognition?
>Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2007 11:12:51 -0500

Is anyone doing any work with text-to-speech or voice recognition in  
the languages they teach?  More as an accessibility feature, for  
students who have little to no vision or who have physical  
disabilities that make typing or writing difficult.  What software do  
you use?  What languages are supported?

I know that Dragon Naturally Speaking has language partners for some  
languages, but these seem to be full localizations and not multi- 
lingual versions.  There also seems to be some promising software  
from www.assistiveware.com for the Mac platform.  Are there any other  
suggestions?

Please feel free to send to me and I will post a summary to the list.


Foreign Language Technology
http://go.carleton.edu/f 

Carly J. Born
Academic Technologies, Team Lead
Carleton College | 507-646-7010 | [log in to unmask] 





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