SlideSpeech: Present Directly to Video Using Text-to-Speech

Editor's Notes

• #2: You can share your knowledge directly to video using Slide Speech. Lets get right into it.
• #3: Follow these four steps. First, download Slide Speech from the Slide Speech dot o r g web site. Second, make a presentation and add speaker notes to each slide. This is a script for the computer to speak. Save the presentation in the open document presentation or o d p file format. Step three is a bit tricky. You need to save the slides as images. How you do this depends on your presentation software. Finally, run Slide Speech. The software creates a video from your script and slide images.
• #4: [Source=http://slidespeech.org] Here is the download screen at Slide Speech dot o r g. It detects whether you run Mac or Windows, so you just need to click the big download button.
• #5: Here are the speaker notes added to the first slide of this presentation.
• #6: Saving slide images turns your slides into a sequence of numbered image files. On a Mac, use P N G, the portable network graphics format. On Windows, use the J PEG format.
• #7: When you run Slide Speech, you pick the presentation file you want to process and the software does the rest.
• #8: Slide Speech extracts a script from the speaker notes of your presentation. The script is converted to audio clips using text-to-speech. The slide images are converted to video clips which match the length of the audio clips. Then the audio and video clips are combined to make a complete video.
• #9: [Source=http://slidespeech.org] Slide Speech dot o r g has more information and examples. OK? Now lets talk about why teachers and students should use Slide Speech.
• #10: The primary motivation for using Slide Speech is Time. Learning takes time. Having the ability to time shift learning interactions has profound implications. Asynchronous learning is very different from synchronous learning. Consider the following three points.
• #11: [Source= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3oIiH7BLmg ] First, Professor Philip Zimbardo explains how the crisis in education relates to perception and control of time. In stark contrast to the instant gratification of the digital world, traditional education is all about delayed gratification.
• #12: [Source= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U ] Second, Sir Ken Robinson explains the education crisis in terms of delivering standardized education for batches of students on a fixed time schedule. This is an obsolete, industrial age system.
• #13: [Source= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc ] Third, Dan Pink points out three things which motivate people to volunteer time to open source projects: challenge, mastery and making a contribution.
• #14: [Source= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebJHzpEy4bE ] Taken together, the three points say students want learning on demand, on their own timetable, and which serves a purpose. As Alan November explains, students are motivated to contribute to the world. Creating and refining shared learning materials is an ideal way for students to use their time to create beneficial effects.
• #15: The operative word is now. Learning now. On demand. Contributing to the world now. Not waiting until after graduation.
• #16: [Source=http://www.slideshare.net/guest1222bdb/mary-meeker-april-2010-internet-trends] Our desire to have pervasive access to knowledge will cause mobile internet access to surpass desktop internet access in just a few years. With mobile technology, learning can take place anywhere, at any time.
• #17: [Source= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1fwBHzBYTk ] Slide Speech, shown here playing a presentation on an Android smart phone, allows this anytime, anywhere access. A Slide Speech presentation can be as simple as a pod cast with pictures. Or think of it as an M P 3 with a message.
• #18: [Source= http://www.quizlet.com ] Slide Speech scripts can link to a multitude of other on-line learning tools and activities. For example, Quiz let is an excellent resource for flash cards for drill and practice.
• #19: [Source= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHp2j4OwVD8 ] Once we begin scripting interactions, we can do more than just make a presentation. The dynamics change significantly when an input prompt becomes part of the interface. This script is shown prompting for the students name. This opens the door for individualized learning.
• #20: Google is famous for the simplicity of their input prompt. Text input can be very effective for navigation. Searching. Slide Speech applies this capability within the context of a script, so a search serves the same purpose as the index in the back of a book.
• #21: Seeree, on the I Phone, allows both voice input and text-to-speech output. The user generally takes the initiative here, issuing commands. But there is no reason why the device cannot be more proactive.
• #22: [Source= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgtREvCZMtg ] When applied in an educational context, the mobile device can use text-to-speech to ask a question, then follow up with a spoken response appropriate to the answer given. This is precisely the immediate gratifcation the digital age student expects. The system can explain immediately what is right and what is wrong, and direct the flow of the subsequent interaction accordingly.
• #23: Slide Speech, based on text scripts, has two other notable advantages over video. First, on-line text is searchable. Second, text can be translated much more easily than video.
• #24: [Source= http://code.google.com/p/wiki-to-speech/wiki/Stigmergy ] This wiki page contains a Slide Speech script for a presentation. A Google search could find this page by matching words used anywhere in the presentation. Using the links indicated, a student can start watching either the slideshow or the video version.
• #25: [Source=http://translate.google.com] Machine translation can jumpstart a translation of a script into another language.
• #26: [Source= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1Sb7_hlUow ] Here, for example, is a Spanish language version of the first section of this presentation. I do not speak Spanish, so that version will obviously have some errors. Considering my lack of Spanish language skills however, the presentation is remarkably good. The following slides give examples of German and Arabic translations recorded from a mobile phone and from a native speaker.
• #27: [Source=http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12838403/20111116/globaledcon11_johngraves_de.htm] German
• #28: [Source= http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12838403/20111116/globaledcon11_johngraves_ar.htm ] Arabic
• #29: [Source= http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12838403/20111109/cross_cultural_slidespeech.htm ] Look for details on using Slide Speech for cross cultural communication in this earlier presentation.
• #30: Slide Speech can help deliver on demand, searchable learning materials, even in translation. Take a step back now and consider the constraints of traditional classroom instruction, what Sir John Daniel of the Commonwealth of Learning calls the Iron Triangle.
• #31: [Source= http://www.col.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/Daniel_110929AAOUPenang.pdf ] The iron triangle links access, quality and cost. You cannot change one without changing the others.
• #32: If you attempt to increase access, you increase cost and decrease quality. If you increase quality, you increase cost and decrease access. If you decrease cost, you shrink both access and quality. However, using technology, it is possible to stretch both access and quality.
• #33: To understand what makes this stretching possible, remember the importance of Time. Traditional instruction happens in a classroom at a set time. Access and quality depend on what happens during that time. With asynchronous learning, learning materials persist. So lessons can be both accessed and improved over time.
• #34: [Source=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_in_volumes] Persistence allows on-line resources to grow by accretion. For example, the English language version of Wiki pedia is huge and growing. If printed, it would fill over fifteen hundred volumes. Sharing on this scale was achieved in ten years.
• #35: [Source=http://slidespeech.org] If teachers and students work together to build open education resources, we will reach a global scale of access and quality in even less time. Best of all, Slide Speech software is free and open source. Visit the web site and download a copy now.