SlideSpeech: Web and Mobile Presentations with Text-to-Speech Voice Over

Your Name and Title:

John Graves, PhD Student. Founder and CEO of SlideSpeech

School, Library, or Organization Name:

AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand

Co-Presenter Name(s):

Computer voices!

Area of the World from Which You Will Present:

New Zealand

Language in Which You Will Present:

English

Target Audience(s):

Instructors

Short Session Description (one line):

Learn how to reach learners -- globally -- via the web and mobile devices at no cost

Full Session Description (as long as you would like):

Imagine a Wikipedia-scale resource of learning materials. The English language Wikipedia has 4 million articles, 25 times as much information as Encyclopaedia Britannica. New technology allows us to collaborate to build a new system of linked lessons which will enable anyone, anywhere to search and learn whatever they like, at any time.

At the core of this new learning system is text -- just as with Wikipedia. Using text allows the collaborative editing and searching which enables 150,000 contributors and 480 million visitors to learn from Wikipedia every month.

At the point of delivery, however, this new system uses voice -- the text is converted to speech. Text-to-speech technology is now mature enough, with very human-like computer voices, to apply it to learning.

Finally, the conduit to access this new system is the powerful combination of web and mobile communications technology. Lessons can be authored simply by adding a script to the speaker notes of the slides of a presentation (such as PowerPoint). The presentation is e-mailed or uploaded to SlideSpeech, where it is converted into formats suitable for playing on the web, on mobile phones/tablets or as a video.

Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session:

SlideSpeech

Collaborative Notes for Session (Google Document)

Tags: mobile, on-line, slidespeech, text-to-speech, web

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on August 15, 2012 at 9:09am

Just making sure--this is not a commercial project, right? Otherwise, you have to be a sponsor to present.

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Permalink Reply by John Graves on August 18, 2012 at 7:31am

SlideSpeech is free.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on August 18, 2012 at 8:29am

Being free and not being commercial are not the same thing.

Learning 2.0 is open and free to all attendees, so if you are a commercial venture we ask you to help support the conference by becoming a sponsor.

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Permalink Reply by John Graves on August 18, 2012 at 1:59pm

SlideSpeech is open and free to all non-commercial users. It aims eventually to build a marketplace for on-line learning materials and offer a subscription plan for commercial use (such as mobile advertising) to subsidise the free collaborative development, use and distribution of learning materials, globally. Think Wikipedia with a store attached for premium content.

SlideSpeech has no revenue at this point and, frankly, almost no money, since every penny we have is going into product development. Take a look at SlideSpeech.com and you'll see there currently is no way for us to charge for anything. So SlideSpeech is a no-profit company, at least for now.

If, given these circumstances, you still insist on sponsorship, let me know what is required as SlideSpeech just had a good session at MMVC12 and it would be nice to have a similar success at Learning 2.0. Here is the MMVC12 presentation: http://slidespeech.com/s/ilalo5jgen/

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Permalink Reply by John Graves on August 20, 2012 at 2:52pm

The unconference session, Seemless Learning and the Mobile Lesson, was not as successful as the equivalent session at MMVC12. Clearly learners who are accustomed to having a live person or talking head (video) are going to be better able to follow live webinar-style instructions than those who are coming to the interaction "fresh" -- as billions of new mobile-only learners are about to.

I have the distinct impression that what we have right now is the same situation Henry Ford faced when he worked to popularize the automobile. Mobile learning technologies have the ability to transform on-line learning "from a very expensive, heavy, hand-built toy for rich people into a lightweight, reliable, affordable, mass-produced mode" of learning for people who have a mobile smart phone but no shoes, living on a planet that desperately needs to get smarter, soon.