Recent advances in technology coupled with the societal circumstances are revolutionizing every industry possible, and education, whether K-12, collegiate, or corporate, is no exception. From audience assessment to content preparation, distribution, and consumption, artificial intelligence is transforming the way teaching has been carried out for decades. Text to speech (TTS) is the latest force in the same node, making education more accessible to people everywhere.
Beyond simply converting written text into audio, the innovative technology leverages synthetic voices that are both authentic and adaptive to whatever situation is at hand. At its native state, this allows turning books, lectures, and pamphlets to audio and visual materials; with extra creativity, this enables the creation of apps, websites, interactive portals, and a global presence that goes beyond the temporal and physical limitations.
1. Creation & Consumption
AI tools not only add personality to education materials but also allow for a more efficient means of production and various types of working/studying environments.
Make it Personal
You can create a branded voice for your company, or even clone the voice of your CEO to make a custom audio or video message for your employees. If you are a professor, you can clone your voice and narrate multiple lectures at the same time or have your teaching assistant edit existing courses using your voice without you being present.
It’s a no-brainer that having a memorable voice for your business is essential for consumers to remember you by. A tailored welcome message from the boss will leave a bigger mark on a new hire’s mentality than a dry email will, and listening to a teacher’s voice is much more engaging than reading drawn-out pdfs. The sheer difference in engagement and recollection are incomparable.
Less Is More
HR leads, managers, and talent teams can leverage TTS to create training materials, L&D presentations, onboarding videos, and more to help their staff better understand their roles and improve performance. You can turn complex documents and lengthy scripts into multimedia materials without having to spend the wheels on external voice actors – or worse, record the audio themselves. This frees them to focus on what matters, not the logistics of the production.
Remote, Hybrid, or Asynchronous
Education should be accessible no matter where or when you are able to receive it. COVID has altered the way we work and learn, and even as we are slowly coming back to our normal lives, we continue to see remote and hybrid work and school. Asynchronous, or one-way learning, has been a norm for quite a while. Generative AI technologies like TTS empowers you to easily make and share materials so remote students and employees can receive the same quality of classes, training, or on-boarding. It also allows the recipients to share comments, feedback, and questions via audio even if it’s not in real-time.
2. Empowering Teachers and Students
Text to Speech and other generative AI technology tools can help shave off time and energy needed by teachers, e-learning producers, and training managers. For one, they don’t have to meet in-person for classes, cutting travel time; for another, they can 10-20x their productivity using AI tools than if they were using the more traditional, manual method. This allows the same number of educators to reach a much bigger group of students. It’s also a nifty mechanism for self-proofreading as you can catch mistakes you may have overlooked when writing.
From the learners’ side, TTS bridges the gap of illiteracy and resource-limitations. According to a study, 13.7% of the world’s population over the age of 15 is illiterate. While this might appear small, the discrepancy between developed nations and developing nations is shocking – only 65% of people in developing countries are literate. By turning written words into audio, students and job-seekers can receive the proper guidance even if they can’t read or write. Additionally, many of the underprivileged citizens spend the bulk of their time either working or in commute, and it’s much more efficient for them to listen as they work or are on-the-go than for them to sit and read.
3. Leveling the Playing Field
Text-to-Speech can serve as an accessibility technology that assists individuals with sight, motion, and learning disabilities interact. It eliminates the need for such individuals to read and interpret text and enables them to communicate efficiently without spending a fortune on expensive specialized equipment.
For people with learning disabilities
According to European Dyslexia Association, about 9-12% of the global population is affected by Dyslexia. TTS and AI Voiceover software like Genny delivers an efficient and practical solution with read-aloud function. It also addresses the many problems experienced by individuals with reading disabilities, such as misidentification of words, slower reading, and difficulties with context-based understanding which often results in challenges with comprehension. Overall, TTS tools improve learning and speech-disabled individuals’ ability to focus, retain information, and improve comprehension.
For people with visual impairments
According to World Health Organization, at least 2.2 billion people have a near or distance vision impairment. Instead of relying on brails to read text-based materials or asking others to read aloud for them, students and employees can listen to voice-based materials made using TTS technologies on their own.
Genny Can Grant Your Wish
Today’s AI voice market is teeming with a cornucopia of text to speech solutions that grant people a whole array of options to choose from.
Genny’s TTS platform is designed to equip both corporate and non-corporate educators to create customized content at a fraction of the cost, time, and effort. We hope to democratize access to quality education for students, employees, and job-seekers beyond physical or temporal limitations.
The benefits of using Genny for voice-related needs are countless. Users have the option of choosing from 400+ natural-sounding high quality AI voices in 100+ languages and dialects. The platform also features more professional knobs and levers like pronunciation editor, speed and pause control, voice cloning, and phoneme-level pitch customization.
Schools and companies alike are making corporate training courses, e-learning modules, explainer videos, onboarding sessions, marketing content, product demos, and more.
Text to speech is revolutionizing education as we know it. As the technology continues to mature and become more widely adopted, the level of adoption from both the production side and the consumption side is only going to increase. We are moving to a world of digital multi-media content that is more engaging, tailored, and accessible.
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