--- 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] *********************************************** LLTI is a service of IALLT, the International Association for Language Learning (http://iallt.org/), and The Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning (http://www.languageconsortium.org/). Join IALLT at http://iallt.org. Otmar Foelsche, LLTI-Editor ([log in to unmask]) ***********************************************