Rob Muhlestein
Aug 31, 2018 · 2 min read

So far (only been examining it this week) the WebSpeech standard appears consistently deployed in everything I have tested. The voices are different, but that is livable. Building a voices command into the virtual assistant makes it nice for them to change voices. The first time they realize that emojis can be vocalized it is always entertaining as well. There is a generic say command built in, which bypasses having to use a command line for such things (and only on Mac). The integration of voice into our otherwise boring command line coding, combined with rich-media (HTML) has been perhaps the biggest hit I’ve experienced since starting, so much so, that I am rewriting all my educational content into my assistant who refers to videos and will add a modal window that actually types things as it voices what is being done. The kids are glued to the screen learning from the interactive assistant. I knew it would be an attraction, but I had no idea it would be that huge a hit. It is so successful I have decided largely to drop much of the YouTube content I was planning and work it into a virtual educational assistant framework. If they miss class, I can have them do it. If it is unclear, they can ask me in person. Then I can update the assistant to clarify. The constraint of only about 200 characters at a time forces me to be succinct and clear (and use commas in the right places). The kids learn typing as they do it and start creating their own content immediately. They get creative writing points as well. I’m pretty much exploding with the discovery and plan to write it up and present at NCTIES or ISTE at this point.

    Rob Muhlestein

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