Mac TTS is easy to activate; follow instructions available via the "Help" menu in the Finder. I searched on "read text aloud" in Help to find how to do this.
None of the voices are "great", in my opinion, but most of them are "OK". I admit, grudgingly, that Windows seems to have better voices. :-)
Windows users may want to use the following:
Mozilla Firefox with Speak It is a stripped down, streamlined re-build of Mozilla offering tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, and significantly increased security over and above Internet Explorer. Firefox is customizable and extensible, and, by adding themes and extensions, can be configured for each user. The Speak It extension provides text-to-speech support on all web pages.
www.mozilla.org/products/firefox; https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3552 Both of these are free.
(A tip of the hat to Skip Stahl, of CAST, for this information.)
5 comments:
Hi. I'm wondering if you know about any great speech-to-text programs that might help me follow along better with what profesors (and other students) are saying. I am deaf and have been trying to find reliable means of accessing speech in my classes at the ed school. I had cochlear implant surgery just under a year ago and am doing VERY well with it, but big classes, big rooms, and background noise pose some challenges. I just want to learn all I can!
David and I are discussing "real time captioning", which I believe is the most promising potential technology to address your needs.
David has used a product in the past that he describes as "clunky", and he has said that IBM has something MUCH better under development (but ready to share with David in our context).
Given your question, I'll up the priority of our thinking about this and cc these comments to David.
Please keep the "heat" on me and on us to wrestle with this issue!
More Later Bart.
Hi Bart, in response to your comment on my blog about the video with basketball player with autism...he and his mother have also written a book which has recently come out, titled "The Game of My Life." I also tear up every time I watch the video clip as well.
I am also new to blogging, is there a way to communicate or comment to other bloggers, without posting a comment?
Forgive me if these seem obvious questions:
Do you use an FM system? My students (none of whom have had the implants) have found them helpful.
Would Dragon Dictate, Naturally Speaking be of service?
My hearing aides have an option which allows me to program a point of location and thereby limit some background noise. Could this be an option for you, too?
Just some ideas that flashed for me when I read your posting.
Zaatarlk,
IMHO Dragon, Naturally Speaking for the Windows platform is the best for speech to text.
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