User:Nick Freear/SimpleSpeak filter

SimpleSpeak TTS filter

A Moodle filter to provide speech synthesis (text-to-speech/ TTS) services for arbitrary text. Text such as `[Speak] Hello world! [/Speak]` is replaced with a button with the text as a label. Press the button, and the text is spoken!

This is beneficial, for example, when teaching younger children, teaching languages, and for accessibility to those with disabilities.

Requirements: tested with Moodle 1.9.7 and 2.0.2 (all Moodle 1.9.x and 2.0.x should work). Requires Javascript. Requires a TTS service (see below).

Uses: jQuery (v1.3.2).

• Download via the Plugins database.
• Installation, see the Readme.
• Discussion in the forums.

TTS service

You can install local software, eg. use eSpeak/LAME, see WebAnywhere for ideas. Or it could be a third-party service. There are a number of TTS services emerging on the Web. I've been wary of saying to much, because in many cases I'm unclear on their terms of use. Please check with the service before proceeding. (And I accept no responsibility for your use of the services.)

Note, currently (May 2011) we need a service that returns an MP3 file:

• jTalkPlugin. Uses LAME and Festival. They've recently exposed their API, eg.

 http://speech.jtalkplugin.com/api/?usecache=true&speech=Hello+world

• VozMe. Just discovered via the excellent Text to voice addon for Firefox. Exposes a popup Flash player - not directly useable yet, eg.

 http://vozme.com/text2voice.php?lang=en&gn=ml&text=Hello+world

• Google Translate.

 http://translate.google.com/translate_tts?lang=en&q=Hello+world

• WebAnywhere non-visual web interface. Source code on Google Code.

To use, log in to Moodle as admin, go to Site Admin | Plugins | Filters | SimpleSpeak, and enter the service URL in the settings form. Eg.

 http://speech.jtalkplugin.com/api/?usecache=true&speech=!TEXT

More to follow!