Text to Speech for the Palm?

I admit it - I’m addicted to my handheld computer. Currently, I have a fairly basic Palm Zire31

that I bought when my beloved Treo 90 bit the dust. (I seem to have a penchant for buying handhelds right before they are discontinued.) One of the things I love most about handhelds is the enormous number of applications you can find, with many of them being free or very inexpensive.

Tonight I was roaming the web and got a wild hare to see if any text-to-speech programs were available for the Palm. Lo and behold, they exist! I haven’t tried any of these yet, so if someone else has, I’d love to see comments.

SpeakMemo will read aloud any text in the Memo application. Depending how much text you put into a memo, this could be helpful for users with dyslexia or other visual processing disabilities.

More exciting is the SayIt application. It claims to be “the only global TTS application for the PalmOS that works with most applications with edit text capabilities.” It’s very reasonably priced, so I may just download this and see what it can do.

Spotlight on Alternate-Format Text

It’s the end of August, and our alternate text request list is really moving! We have over 30 texts that have been requested for fall term so far. With four weeks to go before the term starts, I expect to see quite a few more in the near future. It’s a diverse list, ranging from Introduction to Statistics to children’s literature. Because the conversion process often requires me to skim the text as I go, I have the opportunity to learn many different things. Never dull!

If you gave alternate text a try in the past and were dissatisfied with it, you may want to consider giving it another go. Many, many things have changed, both within SOU’s processes and in the alternate text field in general. For instance, the American Association of Publishers is now cooperating with AHEAD (the national organization for disability services professionals) in creating a much more workable system for securing accessible text for students with disabilities. On another front, Readings for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFB&D) is now offering all their titles exclusively on CDs - no more clunky, bulky, hard-to-navigate 4-track tapes! There are newer organizations, as well, that give you other sources for audio texts, such as Bookshare.

Here at SOU, we’ve made enormous changes in the past year. We now have the ability to produce e-texts, which can be accessed in a number of different ways:

• Using part of our newest assistive technology package, E-Text Reader, which is available on every computer on campus.
• Using JAWS or Kurzweil, available in our AT lab and at select adaptive stations on campus
• Using the program Natural Reader, which has both a free and paid version and can be downloaded at home
• Using VoiceOver, a built-in function of the Mac 10.4 (Tiger) operating system

All of these options have different advantages and disadvantages. If you’re interested, email me for more specifics or come in for a visit!

Another option is for us to convert text to an MP3. The enormous advantage of MP3s are their portability - you can use them directly off your computer or on any of the growing number of devices that support the MP3 format. There’s a couple of disadvanges, however. MP3 files are not searchable, which makes finding the sections you need to study, review, or refer to quite difficult. This past year, MP3s we produced were sectioned off by chapters to help with this issue. However, I can also create them for each separate page, which may help even more. The other disadvantage of MP3s is that once they are created, it is difficult to impossible to change speed or pitch. This does depend somewhat upon the device you are using - the popular iPod, for example, has three speeds (Slower, Normal, and Faster).

Coming soon - Info on new ways to receive your alternate texts!