So, in searching for a Web 2.0 tool to use in my classroom, I remembered that 33% of my students are ESL (English as a Second Language). So, I wanted a way to connect with them as well as my other students.
Then I came across the iSpeech program. It allows a teacher or web-designer to type in what he/she wants to say, and it will speak to your students either online, or you can create an mp3 for them to listen to. You can even set it up to translate as well.
So to try it out, I first signed up, as usual, for the service. Then came time to play around in the program. I started by going through all of their demos clips and tutorials in order to figure out “HOW IN THE WORLD DO I DO THIS?!?”
After spending hours reading and watching, reading and watching, I finally felt comfortable trying it for real. So I typed into the program the words:
“Hello and welcome to Mr. Hudson’s music class.”
I pressed play. A British woman started talking. Well…that won’t work. So I switched the voice that would be speaking to United States Male. I thought…”wow that sounds better than my voice.”
Hopefully this will be a tool I can use to connect to the ESL students and the hearing impaired students. It also seems like it may be useful to set up a website with sub plans where the substitute just presses play and the lesson goes on.
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