Group items tagged

SpokenText lets you easily convert text into speech. Record (English, French, Spanish or German) PDF, Word, plain text, PowerPoint files, and web pages, and convert them to speech automatically.

SpokenText converts any text into clear natural sounding speech. Convert documents, web pages or just copy and paste the text you want to convert, then learn while on the go

Asa Spencer of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute writes in the Education Gadfly Weekly: "Traditionalists cringe, tech buffs rejoice: This latest NAEP writing assessment for grades eight and twelve marks the first computer-based appraisal (by the "nation's report card") of student proficiency in this subject. It evaluates students' writing skills (what NAEP calls both academic and workplace writing) based on three criteria: idea development, organization, and language facility and conventions. Results were predictably bad: Just twenty-four percent of eighth graders and 27 percent of twelfth graders scored proficient or above. Boys performed particularly poorly; half as many eighth-grade males reached proficiency as their female counterparts. The use of computers adds a level of complexity to these analyses: The software allows those being tested to use a thesaurus (which 29 percent of eighth graders exploited), text-to-speech software (71 percent of eighth graders used), spell check (three-quarters of twelfth graders), and kindred functions. It is unclear whether use of these crutches affected a student's "language facility" scores, though it sure seems likely. While this new mechanism for assessing kids' writing prowess makes it impossible to track trend data, one can make (disheartening) comparisons across subjects. About a third of eighth graders hit the NAEP proficiency benchmark in the latest science, math, and reading assessments, compared to a quarter for writing. So where to go from here? The report also notes that twelfth-grade students who write four to five pages a week score ten points higher than those who write just one page a week. Encouraging students to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) is a start."

Very cool way to look at the evolution of words and language. Enter a word or phrase, select a time period and language then look at the frequency pattern of that word or phrase as it is distributed throughout the books that have been digitized by Google. A simple search with computer and Computer shows very different results as the tools is also case-sensitive (parts of speech).

"Listen or download audio of 100 characters of text in many different languages. Perfect for language students engaged in self-directed study."

I tried this at our school on a student system. I had hoped that it might make typing more efficient for really young users in addition to helping our special needs. It made Word load too slowly for the general population, and our special needs students receiving their own computers with co-writer or other word prediction software supported through our LEA. It had a nice interface (big icons, text is big, etc.), but it won't server our needs at this time.

readthewords.com for Special Ed, ESOL, Low Level Readers, Writing and More!

Read The Words could be a beneficial tool to students who are Language Impaired and/or Learning Disabled in Reading. The audio can reinforce the written word and increase comprehension. Also, it could be a valuable tool for autistic students who prefer to work independently. They can use this to aid comprehension and also it could be a reward. This tool could also add interest to text for any student.