What is Text to Speech?

Text-to-speech technology

In a world where globalization and a diversity of languages have impacted education, text-to-speech technology is a wonderful way to increase the accessibility of written content and improve comprehension. The world health organization reports that approximately 285 million people are visually impaired, and up to 39 percent of these individuals are blind. Using a voice recognition app or web platform with the capability of read-aloud can make it easier for these individuals to find written content and learn to read and comprehend. In addition, text-to-speech software helps improve reading skills, and reading audiobooks encourage children to pay attention to sounds and words, which can ignite a love of reading.

While text-to-speech software is a great way to make written content more accessible, it is important to consider what types of content these technologies can read. These technologies can improve comprehension and retention, so finding a system that includes multiple voices is important. In addition, text-to-speech software should include different voices for different subjects so students can easily distinguish between different voices.

The natural language modeling process

A method is known as natural language modeling (NLM) converts spoken text into understandable English. Numerous uses and applications are possible with this method. NLP-based text-to-speech systems leverage a deep learning algorithm and neural networks. These models can identify patterns of sentiment, major phrases in different contexts, and specific text slates within a block of text.

One of the major steps in NLP methods for text-to-speech conversion is tokenization, which separates raw text into tokens, commonly recurring text sequences. Tokens can be words and subword units called morphemes or individual characters. Tokenization is often the first step in an NLP pipeline. Tokens are a crucial part of the NLP pipeline, as they can improve recognition accuracy.

Impact on learning

In studies of students with learning disabilities, text-to-speech can help them improve their reading comprehension. This technology provides students with independent access to informational and narrative texts. However, some students report that the tool isn't as effective as a human reader. This study examined four students with a learning disability and their ability to read and listen to texts. Despite its many benefits, text-to-speech didn't improve their reading abilities nearly as well as a human reader.

The technology is both affordable and time-saving. Its implementation is easy and inexpensive, so it's no wonder that many eLearning providers are using it. Although some critics consider this technology cheating, recent research has shown that this technology improves learning outcomes and keeps students motivated.

Costs

The increasing use of text to speech for education is driving a surge in prices, mainly driven by the rising popularity of COVID-19 and remote learning. These developments will profoundly affect the future of education and educational institutions in surprising ways. While increased demand for accessibility and materials costs are expected, the hidden costs associated with text-to-speech systems are less clear.

You won't have to pay for voice actors or book rooms with text-to-speech. You can record content on the fly, on the train, or even on the plane. Unlike video-to-speech technology, you can control the recording process and the output video to get the desired results. As a result, it saves time and money on every stage of your project. Compared to traditional methods, text-to-speech is easy to use and cost-effective for learning and training materials.