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Speaking dictionary/pronunciation help, Part 2 – The technology: Installation & configuration of the free Windows XP text-to-speech wizard
- MS-Speech synthesis which comes free with Windows XP is a mature technology which gets even better if combined with free downloadable voice/language combinations and a simple interface.
- Since 2005, I have set up the following text-to-speech environment in language learning centers, wherever I could: The pleasant, speedy interface and convenient integration into the computing productivity environment (Clipboard, Internet Explorer) seems to lead to higher usage than online speaking dictionaries. And the price is hard to beat (all components are free on Windows XP).
- The Deskbot pronunciation – most of my own testing has been for German and English, but I rely on the feedback of native speaking other teachers and tutors for other supported languages – is good on a word level . The prosody of sentence pronunciation leaves a lot to be desired, but is a start nevertheless.
- If you want to install the Deskbot Text-to-speech wizard for your users, or for your own testing and language learning, here are the steps and settings we recommend:
- Use these installers:
-
Language TTS Engine Language Add-On American English tv_enua.exe already installed British English lhttseng.exe already installed Dutch lhttsdun.exe agtx0413.exe French lhttsfrf.exe agtx040C.exe German lhttsged.exe agtx0407.exe Italian lhttsiti.exe agtx0410.exe Japanese lhttsjpj.exe agtx0411.exe Korean lhttskok.exe agtx0412.exe Portuguese (Brazilian) lhttsptb.exe agtx0416.exe Russian lhttsrur.exe agtx0419.exe Spanish lhttsspe.exe agtx0C0A.exe - Move the Deskbot near the lower right corner notification bar to have it not clutter the user interface.
- Do not automatically read clipboard when changed
- Do NOT play animation sound effect: effects wear out quickly and become distracting or annoying.
- Default set to American male: or whatever in your shared environment is the language all learners understand .
- You have to click “set” to actually effect a change, and close the options dialogue.
- Set read random greeting at startup: in a shared computer setting, you can on startup.
- Have the Deskbot introduce himself with basic usage instructions: In order to have this feature self-advertise in the LRC, beyond my face-to-face-classes in the language center, I have the Deskbot read out an informational welcome message every time it starts up (you could use this feature also to have the Deskbot issue a random greeting in your target language).
- Show balloon – useful since words scroll in as spoken.
- In the Speech control panel, you can set the speed to slow – useful for language learners.
- MS Agent Options: TBA
- You can view the Deskbot install process in sequence as a screencast:
- Or you can view the configuration options screens with recommended settings in this screenshot gallery:
- For my own – and maybe your – reference, here is a raw screencast of the most recent installation and configuration of Deskbot multilingual text-to-speech engine for MS-Windows.
-
time
content
0,00
Base install begin
2,50
Deskbot – including its installer – cannot handle the character encoding of some non-western languages that it speaks (Japanese, Korean, Russian). In order to have Deskbot speak these languages, you have to use the Deskbot option “Read Word document” (allowing Word to translate the character encoding into a format Deskbot can understand enough to aurally (even if not visually) display).
4,13
fine tuning for language learning purposes in deskbot options and speech control panel after install
6,09
“advanced character options”: set the speaking speed
Returning to the base installation of some more languages
8,04
more deskbot options
10,34
test of Spanish pronunciation with elpais.com
- In a computer lab environment with Faronics Deepfreeze and Symantecs Ghost imaging, you will also want to copy these settings to the Default user, and make sure that the deskbot startup items gets added to all users or HKLM registry hive (the interface does not allow for installing for all users).
Testing Ribbon Hero 2 as a training resource for MS-Office
“A game fit for playing at work”? I am game!
Easy to tell after a couple of rounds that this constitutes a nice effort, but…
I wish the Excel Ribbon Hero game would remember – after all, Office 2010 still does, thank you! – the Office 2003 keyboard shortcuts, like for Data / Sort.
Or do you really think I needed a hint to sort a table in Excel?
“Right, but is the game called Excel Keyboard Shortcut Hero?”. Oh well, I earned my points via the context menu, that is not a Ribbon feature either, is it?
Digital language lab audio configuration
Issues (BSODs) have been reported with simultaneously running USB sound-card driven headsets and on board audio, which have been alleviated by either USB soundcard driver updates or disabling the onboard audio or both.
To be safe, we do the latter, on this screen of the Dell-Optiplex-760-bios: f12 / System Setup / Settings / Configuration / Miscellaneous Devices (you need to push button “Unlock”and issue the BIOS password to make changes):
Dual audio is also a potential source of confusion for the user. This is the reason why we prefer hiding the MS-Windows Volume control icon in the notification bar – a setting in the control panel / sound and audio devices:
We rather stir the user to the Sanako student player audio volume slider as the single point of entry – and one which can be easily seen by the teacher: see Study 1200 teacher / PC Control / Show the student player).
This comes with added responsibility for the teacher, as the Sanako student player audio volume slider does not control the WAVE volume level. Ensure proper setting of the WAVE volume level AND proper source audio levels – or use our TBA:teacher lab audio control extensions to control the WAVE levels on student computers.
How to reveal your Skydrive/Office online cloud storage URL with SkyDrive Simple Viewer
A useful tool is SkydriveViewer which can reveal the URL of your MS-Office online Skydrive if you provide your Windows Live online credentials:
![skydrivesimpleviewer-url_thumb[1]](https://thomasplagwitz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/skydrivesimpleviewer-url_thumb1.png "skydrivesimpleviewer-url_thumb[1]")
Download it from the SkyDrive Simple Viewer Codeplex site.
How to rip an audio CD in MS-Windows with Windows Media Player
- Windows Media Player has CD-ripping capabilities built-in, WMA-format used to be the only option and is still the default in Windows 7, but can be changed under menu:”tools” / “options”/ tab:”rip music”
Potential Moodle-compatible replacements for Wimba Voice
With the demise of Wimba Voice on campus, Languages and Culture Studies lost some of their online learning acitivities and are still looking for a replacement, perferably within Moodle.
I have looked through some options and would recommend the following applications for a test install:
1. NanoGong, free (as in kittens). More info here:
2. WebSwami, a language learning platform, not free, and can also record video, and do much more. More info here:
Introduction of NanoGong, free open source voice recorder for Moodle
- This is a brief summary outline of NanoGong (which has just been upgraded to version 4.1, which includes an installation file for our current Moodle version 1.9.8), would be a good audio recording add-on for language learning to install in our Moodle learning system. What follows is compiled from various online sources:
- “NanoGong is an applet that can be used by someone to record, playback and save their voice, in a web page. When the recording is played back the user can speed up or slow down the sound without changing it. The speeded up or slowed down version of the recorded sound can be saved to the user’s hard disk, if he/she wishes
- There are special features for programmers, such as the ability to show or hide parts of the NanoGong interface or to completely control what the applet does.
- The NanoGong applet has been released as an open source project since version 3. The picture below shows the NanoGong applet with all components shown. “
- “NanoGong provides a very simple and transparent voice support for Moodle. Using a NanoGong activity and a NanoGong filter NanoGong provides two different types of voice support for Moodle”:
- “An extended HTML editor which supports voice-enriched content”, “ enabling a voice recording option for virtually any Moodle activity entry that uses the wysiwyg toolbar”, as you can see here:
- ”A NanoGong activity which allows students to submit voice messages to their teachers”:
- Questions remain:
- You can customize the recorder applet: Need to check whether this includes the timestretching capability, given that language teachers can be averse to student-controlled,
- Need to check for capability of downloading batches of submissions from the student class and grade it with time-saving techniques, like described here using Audacity. A more sophisticated example that testifies to the same features required to get graders adopt increasing audio student submissions was Web Audio Lab, an authoring system for developing interactive audio-based language courses (Language Resource Center, Cornell University. 2003-2007):
- How could one implement a dual-track recorder using NanoGong, with the program track providing aural cues for a more natural oral interaction?
- Requires JAVA (test compatibility).
- There is no Moodle 2.0 version yet.
- NanoGong seems “a derivative of the Gong standalone voice board” – without similar requirements and issues? Gong can also be integrated into Moodle, seems more advanced, but also much more difficult to implement (requires a tomkat server; problems have been reported with losing course deletion functionality in Moodle, the authentication pass-through not working from Moodle and the audio graph not working in Moodle).
- As with any open source project, there are some move Ifs.
- However, Nanogong seems the free audio recording plug-in for Moodle which is currently most favored.
How to do a screenshot of a full web page (beyond visible portion)
I have been meaning to find a screenshot software that can show the entire portion of a window – including the “scrollable” portion, i.e. more than the visible.
A long time ago, I used to do this with HyperSnap, but this software is not free.
Screengrab which I came by today, does it nicely – within Firefox:
Limitation: Screengrab requires you to access the context-menu on the page via right-clicking – some web sites prevent this!
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If you cannot find it here, look there: 5,500 Language-Learning Links and Programs for learning or teaching 150 languages
Shortcuts:Our Lists, Our Maps, LRC Staff Moodle Site,LRC Project Moodle Site, 49erexpress, UNCC Moodle, Student Recordings: s:claslcslrcsanakostudent
Learning usage samples: Sanako oral exam, Kaltura webcam presentation, Dictation with speech recognition, Sanako written exam, Chinese and Japanese interactive stroke-order practice
Test the Sanako Installer, Webbrowser Popup Konfigurator for XP, or Windows7, faster LRC TeacherPC Log-in Let MS facilitate diacritics writing by installing for you US-International keyboard layout
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