U051 – Text-to-speech
In order to allow students to use text-to-speech in BookWidgets, the primary requirement is that they are able to highlight text with the mouse.
By default, students cannot select or highlight any text inside a BookWidgets activity. This also impedes them from copying any text. If your students are allowed to use screen reader software, you can enable text selection in the widget settings.
Allowing text selection
- In the widget editor, go to General > Text selection and text-to-speech.
- Check the box Allow text selection.
Students will now be able to highlight or mark text in the widget. If they use external screen reader software, the software will now be able to act on the text. This software will provide context buttons as soon as the students highlight a piece of text.
Using browser text-to-speech
If you've enabled the permission for highlighting text, an additional option will appear: Text-to-speech support. This will allow students to use the browser's built-in text-to-speech options, insofar these are available. Most common browsers do offer such a functionality.
If you select the option Use browser text-to-speech, you'll be able to additionally select a primary and secondary language.
Note: the abilities of the text-to-speech function depend on the browser, and therefore by extension the device. It is possible that the language(s) you select work fine on your device and in your browser, but aren't available for a given student.
Safe Exam Browser is a browser, too.
"Prefer online text-to-speech voicesInformation"
An additional setting is whether BookWidgets should give preference to online voices or not. Some browsers can call on an online database of text-to-speech voices, which are usually of better quality and therefore more understandable. On the other hand, they also require more bandwidth. If browsers use offline voices, they usually borrow them from the operating system. Offline voices tend to be of lower quality and sound more robotic.