The new digital voice, that those of us working with text-to-speech have been waiting for, is soon to be available.
I reported a few weeks ago about Heather - the fantastic new synthetic speech engine from Cereproc - was to be provided to all Scottish schools through funding from the Scottish Government and she’s on her way!!!This will make a difference to the reading and writing experiences of many of our children.
Listen to Heather here:
Again, we have our friends at the CALL Centre to thank for pushing this initiative through the Scottish Government, making them understand the importance of such provision and bringing it to the computers in our schools soon.
The ATS Service has arranged a training day to help schools prepare for the inevitable increase in the number of pupils with Additional Support Needs who will opt to sit their exams using ICT.
Our friends at the CALL Centre, Edinburgh University have been developing this work with the SQA over a number of years now and have delivered training to large numbers of staff from schools around the country.
The Highland day is set for Tuesday 10th June and we hope to offer all our secondary schools a couple of places at this important event. The details of the course can be seen on the CPD Calendar but we’re targeting this at PTs of Support for Learning and SQA Co-ordinators.
Some of the schools who have been using digital question papers have begun to create interactive digital versions of other resources such as Prelims, NABs and worksheets and so we will look at tools and techniques for creating such resources.
The course presenters will be:
Paul Nisbet, Senior Research Fellow, Communication Aids for Language and Learning (CALL) Centre
Patricia McDonald, SQA Project Manager, National Qualifications Product Development
Margaret Dearman, Support for Learning, Buckie High School
