Studies investigating learning gains in students exposed to synthetic voice audio-narration versus natural voice audio-narration have yielded mixed results. Hence this study was designed to further explore learning gains in an educational setting using synthetic voice audio-narration. The aims of the study were to quantitatively assess learning gains in students exposed to an educational resource narrated in a synthetic voice using Text-to-Speech, as compared to a natural voice narrated one and to qualitatively compare the two learning resources by using the following criteria: helpfulness, quality, warmth and familiarity and preference of audio-narration. This study consisted of 3 experiments.
Experiments 1 and 2 were designed to compare a synthetic voice-narrated learning resource against a natural voice-narrated learning resource. Experiment 3 was designed to investigate learning gains and qualitative factors in a face-to-face narrated presentation. For Experiments 1 and 2, presentations were prepared in Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 to include synthetic voice audio-narration by using the freely available Text to Speech software “PowerTalk 1.2.14”. Natural voice audio-narration was done by recording the tutor’s voice in the PowerPoint. Student’s two-tailed t-tests were used to compare differences in samples.
There was no significant difference in learning gains in students using a learning resource with synthetic voice audio-narration as compared to a natural voice audio-narration. Regarding the quality of audio-narration, results suggested that natural voice narration and face-to-face narration were perceived to be of higher quality that synthetic voice narration. Although all learning resources were perceived as being helpful, students preferred face-to-face narration with a PowerPoint presentation by the lecturer as their first choice followed by the narrated Power Points whilst PowerPoint presentation only was the third choice. This study shows that synthetic voice audio-narrated resources could be a useful tool in educational settings.
basically students can hardly make the different voice audio narrated and provide learning resources using quality, helpfulness and other criteria.
ReplyDeleteI also share the same opinion as those students that participated in those experiments.Though with our advanced technological tools we can make softwares that mimic our speech but these softwares will never perfectly simulate it. When considering learning there are different aspect of our speech that helps in learning,like the intonation and the pace. All this help to give a crystal clear image of the topic. In this experiment all the students got the same information but those with the synthetic voice missed that part which of course does not account to much since both groups got the same results, but learning means that the student is expected to learn more than expected.On this basis i prefer face to face and the powerpoint presentation followed by natural voice with powerpoint presentation, than the one with the synthetic voice.
ReplyDeleteEducational resources investigated into 3 specific educational settings_meant to assess learning gains and research on preference, familiarity, helpfulness,quality of audio-narration_demonstrated that students appreciated face-to-face narration first, natural tutor-audio-narrated next, and then synthetic voice-narrated multimedia presentations. I prefer this same order of choices.
ReplyDeleteFrom my point of view, voice audio narrated (speech synthesis) plays a major role in multimedia as it suites the modality principle stated by Mayer. Furthermore, I would also opt for a face to face narration with a PowerPoint presentation by a lecturer as my first choice because it has numerous advantages such as the lecturer makes the class lively (preventing me to lose focus rapidly) with its body language, facial expression, eye contact, questions and so on.
ReplyDeleteMoreover,it helps in the assimilation of the topic being discussed more rapidly, for example, a student can asked questions to clear out his/her doubt immediately when he/she do not understands something related to a particular topic of the subject while the lecturer is still there.
Indeed, such a technology is thought to be helpful to students for learning, especially for disabled students and all. It helps to understand the subject in a more rational and innovative way and the level of comprehension would be much higher in this case.
ReplyDeleteNatural voice was perceived as higher quality due to the fact that human beings are more prone and comfortable to real-life situations. The synthetic voice is usually fabricated and it depends on the software being used, and several other factors. Most of the time, the quality of synthetic voice by the computer is seen as being much inferior.
Even though a narrated powerpoint was suggested to the students, yet, they preferred the face-to-face, denoting that there still exists the human warmth, which attracts people and students.
Yet, synthetic voice can always be useful in appropriate circumstances, where it is difficult for a face-to-face, amongst others.
I agree with the result of the research that most students preferred th enatural voice audio-narration to the synthetic voice audio-narration because I would prefer a lecturer with a powerpoint presentation where there would be face-to-face interaction and there would also be clarification of certain issues. Students would be more apt to follow classes with a lecturer rather than the synthetic voice audio-narration where at a given time, students may find it boring and may not pay attention to the presentation or even the natural voice audio-narration where only the voice of the lecturer will be recorded in the powerpoint. Nevertheless, natural voice is better than the synthetic voice. The synthetic audio-narration would be useful if tutors are absent or are not available for a longer period of time and for students not to lose their time and for not to be late with modules.
ReplyDeleteIn fact synthetic voice could be helpful in the educational sector.But I am convinced that this method of teaching will never equal a lecturer teaching.Using synthetic voice to teach is very boring for the students.Students get distracted much more easily with this method of teaching.The synthehtic voice is monotoneous and not interactive.Moreover a lecturer adapts its way of teaching according to the student's level whereas a synthetic voice cannot do so.The synthetic voice cannot answer the questions of the students as the lecturer would do.So definitely I would rather prefer to have a lecturer explaining than having to listen to a synthetic voice.
ReplyDeleteThis has helped and is still helping students for their presentations, whether be it on WORD or POWERPOINT. Sound and pictures can be inserted to facilitate the students for better communication between others and if ever somebody has missed something, it becomes very easy to add up. This is possible due to the help of technology for producing a lifelong learning.
ReplyDeleteFrom the results of the samples, it is evident that synthetic audio narrated and natural voice narrated presentations cause no harm to the learners’ as the learning gains demonstrated no significant differences. From the warmth and familiarity perspective however, it is no denying a fact that the natural voice audio narration is preferred to the synthetic one as it is more welcoming and friendly by its different tones involved in contrast to the synthetic audio narration which will only explain the power point slides in a monotonous dull tone. As such, the synthetic audio narration remains a field to explore more widely and its introduction can in no way be harmful.
ReplyDeleteOur ability to process information is a multi_step process that involves the attention, selection, organization and integration of information. Using the multimedia learning environment, the brain is able to process the information being delivered whereas the split attention can be quite interesting whereby the students have to look for information, thus gaining more knowledge.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, synthetic narrated power points are useful tools since we are forced to hear the voice reading the texts while looking at the presentation slides. If only texts were present, we would briefly look at them and move to the next slide until we finish. However, I will always opt for a class presentation with a lecturer since the class will be a two-way traffic whereby the lecturer gives us information and we may ask questions. The lecturer will always try to answer us and the manner in which he/she will explain to us will always be friendly, contain facial expression, body language, change in voice tones ( for example difference between a sentence and a question) compared to synthetic narration which will be like “robot reading”. Therefore our attention will always be captivated in class.
ReplyDeleteBut many things can be done to increase the interest of narrated power points for us to be able to learn from those presentations. For example use of natural voice recorded in the presentation and advanced technology can be used so as to answer questions from people using microphones (voice input) and speakers (answers as output).
To Reetesh_18, i totally agree with you that synthetic audio narrated and natural voice narrated presentations cause no harm. However, Natural voice audio narration will always captivate our attention due to the friendly attitude, change in tones, etc...We would always be more at ease with natural voice rather than synthetic voice. But i firmly believe that with more advances in technology this obstacle will be removed and in some years to come, synthetic voice narration will be able to reach each and every people in different tones, friendly manner. As such, this field need to be experienced by people and researches need to continue their research and upgrades.
ReplyDeleteThrough my experience I believe that face to face narration with a lecturer in front of the class to guide us through power point presentations with a hard copy of the handouts at our disposition is the best way to learn. This method allows us to easily assimilate and understand the lecture as well. I am against text to speech method of learning because it is a passive (no communication between lecturer and student) way of learning, and during this type of lecture the student’s mind is most of the time diverted elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThis text relates that though advanced tools we can create softwares that mimic our voice but they will never perfectly imitate it. The synthetic audio-narration would be useful in some cases only. The most common example is whenever tutors are unable to attend classes, they just pass their own prepared natural voice-audio lectures to students. As mentioned in the text from the tests that were carried, natural voice was preferred to the synthetic voice. Personally, i prefer face to face and the powerpoint presentation by natural voice.
ReplyDeleteA computer that can read aloud is an excellent tool to teach reading. Beginning readers can follow along as the computer reads. Text Speaker highlights the word currently being read, helping the student learn it. Reading speed is adjustable and can be adapted to a learner at any skill level.
ReplyDeleteText to speech is also used in teaching foreign languages. By having a native language voice read text, the student can correct pronunciation at anytime, anywhere.
The use of multimedia in the educational field has proved to be a very useful tool in enabling students to understand and interpret information more easily. When we focus on the audio setting, we can observe that adding sound to a slide show increases its ability to deliver a message. Through some experiments that have been carried out, it is assumed that a learner do not pay any particular attention whether the voice is a synthetic one or a natural one…since the results obtained are almost identical in both cases. Though the helpfulness and the quality were here, there were no warmth and familiarity, as when compared to the lectures that are delivered by a person standing in from of the class and explaining the slides. Voice narration (auto-running slides) makes no room for interaction…that is, if anyone has a question during the presentation, he/she won’t be able to ask it on the spot, or else the person will have to wait at the end of the presentation. In contrast, if there was a face-to-face interaction, the lecturer could be paused in his/her go to deal with questions, responses… From my point of view, I do agree that an audio narration in PowerPoint presentations is a good thing, however, it is better when it comes directly (in live) from a lecturer, because after all, machines cannot replace the presence of human beings!!!
ReplyDeleteThe preference shown by students, who took part in this study, towards face to face narration of power point presentations over presentations narrated by synthetic voices is fully justified. Natural audio narration helps to enliven the class and allow for interaction between the lecturer and the students. The latter can interrupt the speaker and ask for clarification before proceeding further into the lecture. Consequently, the lecturer may also adjust his pace so that the students grasp the maximum knowledge from his lecture. On the other hand, a synthetic audio narration provides none of these advantages and from personal experience, I can say they tend to create a monotonous atmosphere which is not conducive to proper learning.
ReplyDeleteReply to Guillaume and Justine: Cognitive load, and quality audio-narrated multimedia presentations help to complement & reinforce educational resources. I agree to the stimulation of senses, browsing for answers. Learners and Tutors interpret aural and visual stimuli for intellectual purposes. It also depends on the students to learn and listen effectively; but synthetic audio is a third choice.
ReplyDeleteThis debate has been going on since the introduction of the synthetic voice audio-narration. As long as I know, synthetic voice can replace the natural human voice. For me, natural voice is better because no synthetized voice could show the facial expression and delicateness when narrating a specific text. As said in this article, experiments has demonstrated that natural voice narration and face-to-face narration proved to be more useful to students. Furthermore after the experiments, it was deduce that there were practically nio difference in the learning gains when using synthetized voice and natural one. So according to me this synthetized voice can also be useful in some specific cases, for example in converting long and easy texts into speech. This program is also very useful the people who have difficulty in talking.
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with the result of the samples. It is convinced that students prefer a face-to-face narration with a PowerPoint presentation by the lecturer and so do I. Obviously, this helps to keep the class alive and students are more likely to focus on the topic. Very often, a lecturer may come with a better idea or way of discussion on the spot. Along the journey of discussion, many beautiful examples may come into the mind of the lecturer which in turn helps to give the students a crystal clear understanding of the topic. Moreover, the different queries flashing into the mind of students can be solved immediately, thus helping the students to assimilate the topic being discussed more rapidly.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, both natural and synthetic voice audio-narration have proved to be useful tools in the educational system. Of course my second choice would be a PowerPoint presentation by natural voice. Natural voice has proved to be of higher quality than synthetic one since it has all the intonation and pace which helps to make learning more interesting. Yet, synthetic voice can still be useful in the educational settings. For instance, if a lecturer will be absent and is going to be busy for a long period of time, then synthetic voice with PowerPoint presentation helps enormously in the smooth continuity of the class thereby preventing students to be late in their modules.
Nevertheless, I would strongly prefer to have a lecturer explaining on the spot rather than having to listen to a natural or synthetic voice audio-narration, where definitely I will get answers to all my questions in the face-to-face interaction.
I totally agree with what Justine said. When a lecturer is writing on the board and explaining at the same time, students are more focused and would surely be able to understand the topic more easily. Any queries the students have could be cleared on the spot. This would evidently keep the class alive as well as interactive. Even students not having any questions would be eager to listen attentively to the answers of their friends’ questions from the lecturer. And obviously if a class is interactive, then students will love learning in this class with this same lecturer. So, definitely all these cannot be done by a natural or synthetic voice audio-narration! As clearly and well said by Justine, a synthetic or natural voice audio-narration could be helpful in the educational system BUT will never equal to a lecturer teaching!
ReplyDeleteFrom the investigation, the results obtained about the students’ learning gains were of no differences thus whether using a synthetic voice audio-narration or a natural voice audio-narration, students will learn. In spite that both types of voices has been found to be useful in learning, hearing a natural voice is better and less boring than hearing a robotic voice. However having a face-to-face narration is much more appropriate, with the presence of a lecturer, questions could be asked if something is not clear, issues can be discussed for better understanding. But one cannot deny that synthetic voice can be of some utility in extreme situations whereby lecturers are unavailable.
ReplyDeleteBoth synthetic voice audio narration and natural voice are helpful with synthetic voice audio narration we an learn a topic which we have not understand several times while with natural voice audio narration we can learn only once as the lecturer cannot teach the same thing every time and this may be difficult to assimilates.However, face to face narration with power point presentation make the class more interesting and more lively with this students can ask questions or share their opinions.
ReplyDeleteWhat is most important in learning from what we have heard and read is that the information is understood by the students and that it gets engraved in the student’s memory. This acts as a proof that the tutor has achieved his/her objective, which is the transfer of knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI have the same opinions as the students who had taken part in that experiment. It clearly demonstrates that audio is crucial in learning; texts alone do not contribute towards motivating students to learn. The research also indicates how the tutor’s own explanations are preferred over notes alone. Learning through listening with the combination of digital texts exhibit better expression; texts and audio gives better knowledge results.
Well as a student, I have already been exposed to all these three types of multimedia presentations and I would like to confirm that the conclusion made by the studies done is the same as the choice I would have made while rating these way of learning; that is my first choice was and is face-to-face narration with a PowerPoint presentation by the lecturer followed by the narrated Power Points and thirdly PowerPoint presentation only. As the studies were mostly based on the usefulness of synthetic voice audio-narrated PowerPoint presentations, I can say that it is surely of great importance as it has a great capacity of obtaining learning gains. This may be because of the voice being used which is usually clean and the words are well pronounced. Also, the tone used in the presentation is less boring and make it sound more interesting. Accompanied by visual text and images, students are more able to understand and grasp the information presented to them. Further if we have wrongly understood a part of the presentation or want to go back to check something, we can still replay or rewind back. Compare to face-to-face presentations, some students would have hesitated to ask the lecturer to go back or re explain something that they did not understand. I can conclude that synthetic voice audio-narrated PowerPoint presentations do not only enhance understanding but also can help us to improve our pronunciations. However, we do have some bad aspects of this way of learning, for example, compare to face-to-face presentation, students won’t be able to ask questions if they have not understand or if they want to know more.
ReplyDeleteIn the new age where we stand, new technologies are arising everyday to make everything just as easy. However here,the experiments clearly showed that there was not much difference between learning from an audio-narrated or a natural voice. And i would agree with guillaume that an audio-narrated would lack intonation,pace. A face-to-face presenter would put more emphasis on whats more important and give any additional information that is not necessarily on the slide and would be more interactive. Furthermore as sawar said questions can be asked in case of any confusion. So i would definitely opt for the presentation by the lecturer as first choice and then the narrated voice like the students in the experiment.
ReplyDeleteAccording to me, whether it is natural audio voice narration or a synthetic audio narration, it depends how you, you perceive it. If a student or a lecturer is more comfortable with natural, he uses natural, simply and vice versa.
ReplyDeleteA lecturer would be better as the latter could easily interact with students and know their level of understanding. An artificial voice would not be able to do so and also there would be no interaction between that and the students, as a result of which the latter won't get appropriate answers to their questions.
ReplyDeleteA computer that can read aloud is an excellent tool to teach reading. Beginning readers can follow along as the computer reads. Text Speaker highlights the word currently being read, helping the student learn it. Reading speed is adjustable and can be adapted to a learner at any skill level.
ReplyDeleteText to speech is also used in teaching foreign languages. By having a native language voice read text, the student can correct pronunciation at anytime, anywhere.
Natural narrated presentation and face to face is the best. As everyone knows seeing something will remain in our mind for a long time. So as we are seeing the lecturer and with all other communication skills, like emphasize, body language etc. But we cannot leave the option of using the two others meaning: sythn voice and voice audio narrations. For me, sythn voice can be an important tool of learning in the further, specially in some third world counties as their English may not be fluent due to their natural accents and local language. In this ways, the sythn voice will be of great use.
ReplyDeleteThe result obtained from the experience is a very good one and I strongly agree to it. However, I think that there is a difference between synthetic voice audio-narration and natural voice audio-narration as at times synthetic voice seems to be boring. With natural voice presentation the speaker will know when to vary his tone and pitch accordingly, therefore provide a better explanation.
ReplyDeleteOn a personal point of view, i also prefer the face-to-face narration with a Power point presentation. This technique allows students to have a better understanding of the topic being explained. Moreover, it allows the student to interrupt the tutor and ask for clarifications, examples or questions. Such technique indirectly 'forces' the students to be vigilant and to pay attention whereas in only a Power point presentation the student would at a time feel lost and would be unable to grasp the content.
ReplyDeleteFor me this investigation gives a logical result as natural voice is the best way, as compared to the synthetic one, to make human understand. Human beings have communicated vocally as from its creation and so everyone is much more familiar to natural voice as compared to the newly invented synthetic-voice audio narration. So, natural voice is the most preferred one as it appeared clearer for the students. Natural voice seems also to be much more effective as a person’s voice tends to be easier to record due to the fact that it is easier to follow. Nevertheless, synthetic-voice audio narration seems to be useful in cases like lecturers have too much presentation to prepare or that presentation is in a language that he does not know well and that he will not be able to explain his students as fluent as it should be.
ReplyDeleteWith Reference to "Justine's" comment, I totally agree that synthetic voices are boring for everyday classes, however they do provide great value to situations which are better suited to their nature eg. Giving basic instructions over a short period of time. Natural sounding voices might eliminate the boring factor but still have the interactiveness issue.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with what Justine has said. We share the same point of views.synthetic voice will never be able to replace the efforts done by a teacher to render his class more interesting and interactive and to solves the difficulties face by its pupils.People will take time to adapt to synthetic voice. In the educational field students may have problem in following explanations and presentations done by synthetic voice. This may in turn has an impact on their result at the end of the day.
ReplyDeleteWith Reference to "Justine's" comment, I totally agree that synthetic voices are boring for everyday classes, however they do provide great value to situations which are better suited to their nature eg. Giving basic instructions over a short period of time. Natural sounding voices might eliminate the boring factor but still have the interactiveness issue.
ReplyDeleteMost of us still prefer the face to face narration as it is the most natural method of conveying information. But still, with the number of new technologies that are being integrated in our educational world, synthetic speeches could also be integrated, as students prefer “some type of narration” over “no narration at all”. Students will become at ease with it only when they’ve been exposed to such a narration for a few times. However a few more experiments should be done in order to assure ourselves that this method is reliable.
ReplyDeleteAccording to me,both synthetic and natural voice narration has provided a meaningful mean of learning from various resources but it is to no surprise,students still prefer the face to face PowerPoint presentation with the lecturer.As it provides a natural sense of dialogue,effective interaction and offers greater persuasion in the eye of the student.However as the students have suggested 'natural voice' is preferred to synthetic voice,it shows that human warmth still plays a role by developing a sense of attraction and interest among people.Moreover the way of teaching in voice narration is more interactive based and friendly in contrast to the synthetic voice narration which only presents the slide in a monotonous fashion which can lead to students being distracted.However synthetic voice can still be useful in certain circumstances for e.g when the tutor is not available to carry out lecture or classes have been postponed.
ReplyDeleteIf we take the time to think a little more about it, the results following these experiments are logical and there can’t be another one according to me. As a student I think that every student would prefer a face to face narration with a powerpoint presentation rather than the two others. This is because the interaction between a lecturer and a student is more interesting than listening to only the voice of a person. It helps not to get bored rapidly during the lecture. The primary reason is that if ever there is any doubt about a part of a lecture, a student can ask the lecture at any moment and he or she will get an answer to clear out the doubt. Now about the two others options, students prefer to listen to a natural voice audio-narration than listening to a synthetic voice. This is because we may try to mimic natural voice via a computer as many as we can, it will never be like a natural one. We, people easily detect that by how the sentence is being said or the words being pronounced.
ReplyDeleteFor sure, synthetic voice audio-narrated resources can be a useful tool if applied properly. Today, modern Text-to-speech audio produces an effect far more natural than speech synthesizers used a few years ago and it is thus easier to understand. Moreover, it is used extensively to aid people with a wide variety of disabilities such as visually impaired students. However, students prefer natural voice narration and face-to-face narration because of the sense of security they get. PowerPoint presentation alone is not such a good choice since students retain more when they see and hear it as this increases their learning efficiency.
ReplyDeleteTo sawar who has post a comment on 16 october 2011 at 11.23:
ReplyDeleteMost of what you have said suits my opinion. I agree when you explained that the presence of a lecturer is more useful than listening only to his voice or only a synthetic voice especially because as you have written the “body language, facial expression, eye contact, questions (asked by both lecturer and student), question and so on”. The only thing that I disagree is when you said that “voice audio narrated (speech synthesis) plays a major role in multimedia”. It would have perhaps helped me to understand your opinion if you had cited the “modality principle stated by mayer” as according to me, it does have a role but not a major role. I think that with nowadays facilities, it is easier to record a speech with natural voice than creating it on a computer via a specialized system. It takes more time and energy and also cost more than using a natural voice.when considering my point of view, what you have said seems ironical as technology is supposed to help us to use less time, energy by spending less.
To sawar who has post a comment on 16 october 2011 at 11.23:
ReplyDeleteMost of what you have said suits my opinion. I agree when you explained that the presence of a lecturer is more useful than listening only to his voice or only a synthetic voice especially because as you have written the “body language, facial expression, eye contact, questions (asked by both lecturer and student), question and so on”. The only thing that I disagree is when you said that “voice audio narrated (speech synthesis) plays a major role in multimedia”. It would have perhaps helped me to understand your opinion if you had cited the “modality principle stated by mayer” as according to me, it does have a role but not a major role. I think that with nowadays facilities, it is easier to record a speech with natural voice than creating it on a computer via a specialized system. It takes more time and energy and also cost more than using a natural voice. When considering my point of view, what you have said seems ironical as technology is supposed to help us to use less time, energy by spending less money.
According to me, face-to-face narrated presentation is the most appropriate from learning. As the teacher is physically present in the class, the students will focus more on what the teacher is saying. Voice audio narration can be used, but not frequently. Contrary to popular beliefs, it can also be sleepy and bored to hear those voice audio. And student can be easily distracted. Agree it is a new means of educating and so on. But personally, I don’t see how we can’t really benefit from it. Could be a waste of time also. What if the students have some clarifications to do? Hence, face-to-face remains the best.
ReplyDeleteI second @Sawar comment.
ReplyDelete"Moreover,it helps in the assimilation of the topic being discussed more rapidly, for example, a student can asked questions to clear out his/her doubt immediately when he/she do not understands something related to a particular topic of the subject while the lecturer is still there."
Synthetic voice audio-narration can be an important tool for learning. For instance, text-to-speech program allows people with visual impairments or reading disabilities to listen to written works on a home computer. It can also be an advantage when a lecturer is not free. In my opinion, face-to-face narration with a PowerPoint presentation by the lecturer is more convenient as compared to synthetic or natural voice audio-narration. When the lecturer is in the class, a warm atmosphere is created. Together with this, the class is interactive, for example, if a student does not understand something, he can interrupt the class and ask his query. Furthermore, synthetic audio-narration is not rhetoric. Synthetic voices are not human, and cannot pick up on the context of the information they are portraying. They lack human input, such as with humour, putting on accents or voices for different characters or building suspense in their voice. In contrast,when the lecturer is infront of us, he will vary his tones and pace while he is talking. He will tend to stress important points through body language and expression. This can be very useful in the learning process which cannot be acqired by both synthetic and natural audio narration.
ReplyDeleteAlthough there was no significant difference in learning gains in students using a learning resource with synthetic voice audio-narration as compared to natural voice audio-narration students still had to make a choice.
ReplyDeleteWell, according to me it makes perfect sense that student will prefer a face-to-face narration with a PowerPoint presentation by the lecturer as their first choice followed by the narrated Power Points. One reason is that as a student I would prefer it if my lecturer do the talking. This way I would not get bored as the lecturer will know how to make the class interesting. And one would be physically and mentally in class as the lecturer can ask him/her a question unexpectedly. So he/she would know better than to let their mind wandering around and this would benefit the students themselves as they will be focused on the lectures.
On the other hand, it is not shocking that PowerPoint presentation only, was the third choice. This is because PowerPoint presentation only would be super boring! Student will likely feel sleepy in class if some voice is just talking on and on. There would be no interaction between the students and the lecturers.
So I personally would opt for the face-to-face narration so that I won’t be tempted to skip class!
Dear Roukshar,
ReplyDeleteYou made a rather insightful analysis but a few points illustrated are rather contradictory.
-The pronunciation by synthetic voice is not that clear. I can confirm that from personal experience and the tone is basically monotonous which is to be expected from a computerised application.
-During a lecture, I feel there is no way to rewind the presentation as this is a ‘one-way’ occurrence. Of course, this is possible if we got a copy of the presentation and we are viewing the latter at home. The advantage of the narrated presentation, therefore, is that the lecturer can go back a few slides and explain again or the students may themselves ask questions to clear any doubts pertaining to the lecture.
Comment on Humeira’s post(23 October 2011 13:01 ):
ReplyDeleteExactly my thoughts! The students will pay attention to what the lecturer explaining compared to the voice audio which tends to be extremely boring as the voice will likely go on talking and talking and there would be no interaction in the class. It would be like you said, the students will feel sleepy and bored at the same time. This could be one of the main reasons why students tend to skip class from time to time.
With reference to "Jaivin's" comment on 20 oct, I agree to some extent that synthetic voice narration has certain advantages. However, we cannot deny the fact that it makes a class dull as it lacks intonation. In contrast, in face to face presentation, the lecturer is infront of you. He creates a warm 'atmosphere' amongst his students. The class is more lively and interactive. He uses body languages, eye contact, different tones..etc while he is lecturing. No doubt, all this cannot be achieved in synthetic voice audio narration.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the experiment results which has been conducted.The natural voice audio narration will always have an upper hand on the synthetic one, as being a student myself i prefer to hear the explanations of my lectures as it show clarity of ideas and allows me to clear all doubts by asking questions.But the synthetic voice audio narration also has its place in the learning process.
ReplyDeleteAs a student I would prefer narration of a human voice as compared to a synthesised one but up to now I guess on a learning basis face to face power point presentation is most suitable as although the presentation with a synthesised or real voice has a limited database of information and might come short to the expectation of some students.
ReplyDeleteOf course synthetic voice will never equal natural voice so i agree fully with Justine. An important point to consider is the adaptation of the lecturers according to the students. The role of teaching is to make people understand, so if the students are getting problems, a lecturer may come to help whereas voice audio narration can't do so.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Justine…me also would prefer a lecturer explaining his PowerPoint project. The Synthetic voice audio-narration technology is important in some cases when someone just missed the PowerPoint presentation. On the other hand, take for instance the case of a lecturer, this technology cannot totally replace the presence of the lecturer himself. The synthetic voice cannot answer questions whereas a lecturer can and thus, makes the class interactive. Doubts can be cleared just as it crops up in one’s mind by just clarifying it instantly with the lecturer. A synthetic voice cannot do that in some cases. Thus, the class is no more interesting and we students fill some things absent. Also, the lecturer could also point out things which might have been missed out in the PowerPoint .Thus, presentation with a synthetic voice is not so useful in some cases.
ReplyDeleteVoice audio narration can be a very helpful tool in education. It is more interesting to read the notes by hearing the voice of the tutor at the same time, than just reading the note without any sound. But according to me face to face presentation is better, because seeing the lecturer makes us more focus, rather than just hearing his voice where we could easily get distracted, and if we need to ask a question on something what to do with the voice audio narration. To revise your notes voice audio can prove to be very helpful. But to learn a new lecture by only the voice audio narration is difficult.
ReplyDelete@ ashvina (23 oct 2011 11:17)
ReplyDeleteThat’s true that if we use voice audio narration properly it can become very helpful. It all depend on the situation we are using it. Student prefer face to face because of that human touch in the voice of the lecturer. But reading and revising the notes at home can be improved by the help of the voice audio narration; it makes the learning more interesting than just reading.
Personally, this investigation logically shows that natural voice is the most excellent way for making human understands as compared to the synthetic one. This decision has been taken because students prefer to have face to face presentation with lecturers as it tends to be more interactive, eye contact is present thus seeking the attention of students and also the natural way of expressing is there. Natural voice seems to be much more effective as a person’s voice tends to be easier to record due to the fact that it is trouble-free to follow. In this experiment, all the students got the same information but those with the synthetic voice are less beneficial than the natural voice. Therefore, without any doubt, I would prefer to have a face to face Power Point presentation as I tend to acquire much more than expected. It is certain that the synthetic voice on the Power Point presentation slides will be less interesting and students might be diverted. However, the synthetic voice can be of great help whenever the teacher is absent or in some extreme cases.
ReplyDeleteYes it is indeed a point to be noted Namrata. It depends solely on the way the individual perceives the information. Everyone does not perceive the same information in the same way. Some might understand the audio-narrator better than the others, while some might be more comfortable with a lecturer's presentation.
ReplyDeleteCOMMENT ON CHANDINEE POST ON THE 24 OCTOBER 2011 @ 09.58
ReplyDeleteDear Chandinee, I completely concur that really natural voice is of great importance for students and the fact the synthetic voice can sometimes be of great help is absolutely correct. We can also deduce that during the class, a moment or two lecturers also want to know our personal opinion about the class, therefore without any problem we can share our personal opinion about the class, which is not the case for synthetic voice.
I fully agree with Miss Gianee Ramkissoon. In this modern life there is lesser and lesser interaction between people so favoring the natural voice narration will promote human contacts and discussions. There is a world of difference between audio narration and natural voice narration. The audio narration will completely lack intonation, emphasis, additional information and interactions.
ReplyDeleteAs Mr Peterson has said natural voice narration is the best way to make human understand.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteUnder this article there was certain points relating educational technology that I agree in exposing students to synetic voice audio-narration versus natural voice audio in order to quantitatively assess the learning gains in students exposed to an educational resource narrated one and to qualitatively compare the two learning resources by using the following criteria:
ReplyDelete1. helpfulness
2.quality
3. warmth
4.familiarity
5. preference
Another point discussed under this article was that students preferred face-to-face narration with a power point presentation by the lecturer and can be used as a tool in educational setting and that could be a vital thing for students
I totally agree that a face to face narration and a power presentation are much more interesting than an artificial narration. This is so because having the lecturer in front of you makes you much more attentive in class. An artificial voice is boring and creates a heavy atmosphere and it becomes very difficult to understand. Only a power point presentation is not enough as sometimes we need more explanation. When the lecturer is in front of us we can ask him question and clear doubt. Thus face to face narration is much more appropriate.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with what Humaira said about not using the voice audio narration frequently.
From my point of view, I see it evident that the experiment results would reveal that natural voice-audio narration is preferred to synthetic voice-audio narration. This is explained by the fact that learners are more familiar with the natural voice. However both have nearly the same effect on learning gains, so that it is not impossible that synthetic voice-audio narration can be explored in the learning system.
ReplyDeleteFrom my point of view, I see it evident that the experiment results would reveal that natural voice-audio narration is preferred to synthetic voice-audio narration. This is explained by the fact that learners are more familiar with the natural voice. However both have nearly the same effect on learning gains, so that it is not impossible that synthetic voice-audio narration can be explored in the learning system.
ReplyDeleteAccording to me ,it is helpful having synthetic voice audio-narration in terms of time since using this method less time will be spent teaching a specific subject.However compared to natural voice audio-narration ,students will be less adapted to the synthetic one since natural one is most common .Also it is true it can turn out to be quite boring listening to a computed voice dictating notes ,and the problem is when there is a particular topic or chapter or even a word which the students cannot understand there is not going to have any explanation from the synthetic voice whereas if a lecturer or teacher were narrating the notes it would be easier stopping him and ask his help when needed .
ReplyDeleteFurthermore the experiment carried out to find out which one synthetic or natural narration was best provided no fruitful results since there has not been any significant difference in results of the students .also in terms of quality of narration the experiments showed students preferred natural one best and this is probably because the voice of the lecturer is familiar and the students got used to their lecturer narrating the notes.
According to me ,it is helpful having synthetic voice audio-narration in terms of time since using this method less time will be spent teaching a specific subject.However compared to natural voice audio-narration ,students will be less adapted to the synthetic one since natural one is most common .Also it is true it can turn out to be quite boring listening to a computed voice dictating notes ,and the problem is when there is a particular topic or chapter or even a word which the students cannot understand there is not going to have any explanation from the synthetic voice whereas if a lecturer or teacher were narrating the notes it would be easier stopping him and ask his help when needed .
ReplyDeleteFurthermore the experiment carried out to find out which one synthetic or natural narration was best provided no fruitful results since there has not been any significant difference in results of the students .also in terms of quality of narration the experiments showed students prefered natural one best and this is probably because the voice of the lecturer is familiar and the students got used to their lecturer narrating the notes.
In my opinion ,synthetic voice audio-narration and natural voice audio-narration both have their advantages and drawbacks.
ReplyDeleteTaking synthetic narration it could be useful in terms of time .i.e less time would be taken to complete a specific chapter or subject as time taken by natural narration.Also in situations where there is limited time to complete particular chapters or modules lecturers and teachers could use synthetic narration to complete these chapters.
However it is as a disadvantage compared to natural narration since the lecturer voice is familiar to students it ids difficult to adapt to a synthetic computed voice.Also when the lecturer narrating he can be interrupted in case where students cannot understand a specific topic or word ,whereas the synthectic narratiing would not provide any additional explanation than that on the powerpoints.
In addition to the above there is also ,the experiments carried out to prove which one synthetic or natural was the best in terms of quality,familiarity and preference showed clearly that there is none marked difference between students having used these two types of narration.It has also been proved that in terms of quality it is natural narration which has the upper hand.
Hence natural narration is the most preferred one since students already adapted to it .
To Manisha
ReplyDeleteIt is true that synthetic narration can be useful in critical situations when there is limited time to complte modules and the tutors can take help of synthesic narration to make it quicker.
However i do not totally agree that students learning gains would become poorer using synthetic narration since it has been proved using experiments one and two that there is no significant difference between learning gains using these two methods.
Also about questions remaining unanswered well that surely depends on the students .when something left confused on a specific chapter or word they should ask the tutor to help them out and i am quite sure that the tutor will surely help these students.
to manisha
ReplyDeleteIt is true that in situations like lack of times to complete specific modules synthetic narration could aid tutors to quite an extent in completing the work in time.
However ,about students learning gains o do not agree that it becomes poorer due to synthetic narration.The gaining abilities depends on many factors like the student understanding ,interpretation the student concentration in class and so on.
Also experiments one and two clearly proved that there has not been any significant difference in learning gains of students learning through synthetic narration and natural one.And as for unanswered questions well the students can always ask their tutors for explanations on specific topics in which they have confusions.
I find the results of this experiment to be not at all surprising. Face to face narrated presentation as compared to the other two better grasp the attention of students because the presence of a lecturer allows for better visual attention and the teacher is also a figure of discipline in class and I believe subconsciously it might play a role on one’s mind helping the students to better focus. Having just a voice narrating whether natural or synthetic can prove to be quite boring which allows one’s mind to wander more easily.
ReplyDeletefrom my opinion the synthetic voice is a useful tool as the voice is almost the same as the human voice thus the result in the experiment 1 and 2 was that the result is the same.on the other hand synthetic voice is just the machine talking and when a student want to ask the machine will not be able to answer the question.then in lectures if the electricity is interrupt the students will not be able to follow the course thus a lack behind in the education.
ReplyDeleteAudio narration versus natural voice.
ReplyDeleteFor my personal view on the advantage of natural voice on narration once is the fact that students are able tom ask questions and some further clarification on certain topic. As a student, I think that we prefer face to face interaction in the sense that in the case of confusion the student can asked question directly to the teacher.
Human are more prone and active to real situation. Student will more pay attention to the subject concerned. Audio-narration is like movies, as student are less attentive because of indirect interaction.
From my view, both synthetic voice audio-narration and natural voice audio-narration are highly important educational resources but still students prefer a face to face narrated presentation by the lecturers and so do I. This allows students to be more interactive in class as the slides may include pictures, animations and colorful diagrams. It provides a way for students to be attentive in class and also allowing them to participate more by sharing their ideas and views. Of course, face to face narrated presentation by students also proves to be very useful in the process of learning as it allows one to be creative, fluent, and persuasive, highly of all, it allows one to have eye contact with the lecturer thus, allowing one to be more determined. It is rightly accepted that ‘natural voice’ is preferred to ‘synthetic voice’. ‘Natural voice’ provides a way to make learning more interesting and interactive compared to ‘synthetic voice’. It is a more user-friendly way to learn through the process of ‘natural voice’ whereas in the case of ‘synthetic voice’, the learning atmosphere tends to be boring as most of the slides seem to be monotonous thus, making students not focusing on the topic, that is being diverted. Still, synthetic voice is useful in educational systems; it allows the students to help them access the notes easily when the lecturer is absent or if the class has been postponed unwillingly, thus avoiding students to be late with their lectures. Yet, I prefer face to face presentation where I am determined that I will firmly be interactive in class and thus getting good grades for exams!
ReplyDeletereply to Guillaume Cecile
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you .I have been subjected to both type of learning ,and I can easily confirm that what you are saying is completely true. when the class is done by the lecturer himself ,there are some tips that he gives us and some analogies which he makes that allow us to have a better understanding of the subject. And naturally this cannot be done by a synthetic voice. Moreover the synthetic voice is monotonous and quite boring .So I too prefer having a lecturer explaining rather than to have to listen to a synthetic voice.
With reference with Justine comment I want to mention that agree with the fact that audio-narration will not be helpful in the education sector. Synthetic voice are like movies and like all movies people tend to fold asleep infront of.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, no machine on earth will be able to get rid of the human touch which exist and must exist between students and lecturers.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, using synthetic voice will not clear any misunderstanding or unclear explanations in case students do not understand certain points.
It rather becomes monotonous to just listen to a machine, blabbering in a sense, for the course.Hence, let the face to face presentation continue!
Though synthetic voice audio-narrated resources do have their pluses, I would personally opt for a natural voice audio-narration, the reason being mainly because of the pronunciation. Especially for we Mauritians, where English is not our mother tongue, I feel that it would be a little confusing as we have not been used to the ‘unspoiled’ English because our mother tongue has nonetheless affected the way speak other languages whether French or English. Moreover, based on the criteria the experiments were conducted, a natural voice audio-narration has more qualities searched for. The experiments have already showed that qualitatively the natural voice audio-narration is better. Concerning familiarity and warmth, it is without doubt that a natural voice audio-narration would be rooted with these qualities and this would definitely lead to helpfulness.
ReplyDeleteFollowing the main points raised in this article, it is crystal clear that a physical class (consisting of the students, the teacher) is much more appreciated by students and I would not claim the opposite. This is because a natural voice that is a lecturer doing the class is better to understand as students would be able to clear all their queries and doubts and will be able to better grasp the concept of the lecture than just listening to a power point slide show with a voice. The criteria used being helpfulness, quality, warmth and familiarity gives a physical class the upper hand. I completely agree with the majority and would rate the class with a lecturer and a PowerPoint slide show first compared to just a slide show. In this way the class become much more interesting and interactive…
ReplyDeleteAS an answer to JESSICA, her as a class with a natural voice of the lecturer is much more interesting than a robotic voice. In addition students would be able to clear all their doubts and queries on the spot by asking questions that would not be possible if a robot is “conducting” the class by “narrating” the notes. Also in some exception, that is extreme cases, robotic voice can be used to conduct classes if it is difficult to travel to and fro to that place due to its geographic landscape. Also in case of some problem arises, it may be used…
ReplyDeleteReply to Justine
ReplyDeleteI too had to face this type of presentation where a synthetic voice was used, and yes it was not only boring moreover i had to concentrate on the voice to make sure that i understand what was said rather than trying to understand the topic itself. Now i cannot said that synthetic voice are useless, they can be useful at some moments but a good teacher must learn how to use it wisely if he really wants his students to understand.
From my point of view can be of great help to students especially those having a visual problem or reading disabilities. The advanced technological software can mimic our voice but there will be a lack of clarity. The student suggested a narrated PowerPoint Presentation which can be a bit boring. Yet I would prefer a face to face presentation followed by natural voice. In this way, the class will be livelier and students will be able to get answer to their questions and clear their doubts on the spot.
ReplyDeleteWell here, according to me, it makes student at ease for a face-to-face PowerPoint presentation by the lecturer/educator as such type of narration in learning courses is a powerful means of improving the efficacy of the material. Adding audio and video will also result in better understanding of the learning material. By the use of the face-to-face PowerPoint presentation by the lecturer/educator will surely keep the students engaged, thus students will not get bored and hence the class will be still alive. A for a face-to-face narration surely adds an element of interest and engagement as well as it provides an element authenticity.
ReplyDeleteYet, sometimes this learning style can prove to be boredom as repeating and repeating the on-screen text can irritate the students/learners and they might also feel sleepy.
In conclusion, it can be deduced that synthetic voice can always be useful in appropriate circumstances (like for disable persons), where it is difficult for a face-to-face to act.
I agree with you vineshkumar bachoo that synthetic voice can hepl students for their presentations and so on. But what about when it comes for a whole explanatory class session? Will everyone be able to cope with the synthetic voice? And what about those who have got questions or doubt about the subject matter or would like to interact, like with a tutor? There are so many questions arising. Yet it can be a good solution as well as a bad one depending on students. The synthetic voice cannot answer students questions like a tutor would do, zatz the point to be noted. And it can also become monotonous at a certain time.
ReplyDeleteSuch a technology is thought to be helpful to students for learning, especially for disabled students. It helps to understand the subject in a more rational and innovative way and the level of comprehension would be much higher in this case. Sound effects have a contextual function the sound effect interprets the visual as it appears.
ReplyDeleteNatural voice was perceived as higher quality due to the fact that human beings are more prone and comfortable to real-life situations. There are different aspect of our speech that helps in learning, like the intonation and the pace. The synthetic voice is usually fabricated and it depends on the software being used, and several other factors. Most of the time, the quality of synthetic voice by the computer is seen as being much inferior.
Yet, synthetic voice can always be useful in appropriate circumstances, where it is difficult for a face-to-face, amongst others.
It is true that we are now living in a new era characterized by innovative technology and so multimedia presentations using synthesized voices contribute much in our classrooms nowadays. Nevertheless, as the students of the survey, I think that a multimedia presentation with the natural voice of the lecturer is better. For me it accentuates concentration and retention because we are aware that what the lecturer is saying is instantaneous and he may not repeat the same thing. On the other side with an audio synthesized voice one may not invest all his or her attention knowing that even after the lecture he or she can afford to get the audio.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, when it is the lecturer speaking the students are familiar with that voice and can associate a face to it. But when it is the computer speaking they cannot do it and some may not grasp the right message. Some people have this problem. In fact they must put a face to a voice to get a better understanding.
I addition during a lecture a human voice can change intonation, adopt different gestures to better convey to the audience the message in the notes whereas a synthesized voice, a computer speaking cannot do it.
I strongly agree with Justine when she says that nothing can replace a lecturer authentique teaching. There is no interaction taking place between a synthesized voice and the audience. In addition, a lecturer knows his or her students and tries to adapt to different classroom atmosphere whereas a lecture with a computer speaking cannot do so. Teaching must be a ‘two way traffic’…
ReplyDeleteAccording to me, synthetic voice audio-narration, natural voice audio-narration and face to face to face narrated presentation, all three play a major role in in the learning process. But most of us prefer to have to have face to face presentation. This is because with face to face presentation, students tend to be more attentive and focused. Also getting this personal touch makes them more at ease than with a computer.
ReplyDeleteUsing synthetic voice narration can be useful in certain cases where the teacher is absent. This can be used as a stop gap measure but not continuously as there are too many inconvenience associated with this method. Normally students tends to fall asleep while listening to the synthetic voice software as these normally have a monotonous voice.
To conclude, we can say that both have their place with preference given to face to face as more students like it.
From my point of view I think that adding audio to learning is a powerful means of improving the efficacy of the material. It can result in better understanding the learning material. It makes the content more persuasive. However,Synthetic speech can be produced very quickly from an electronic text file, meaning synthetic speech may enable quicker access to information in a cheaper way. Its drawbacks would be that the communication will be one sided, student will not be able to stop the communication and ask questions. With natural voice-narrated learning students will be more comfortable to learn, however may not be able to ask questions to their tutor to clear their doubts. However, I think that face-to-face narration with a PowerPoint presentation by the lecturer is the best way to teach as students are able to ask questions and will be more comfortable to learn.
ReplyDelete@ Doogesh Kodi Ramanah:
ReplyDeleteWell, I agree to some extent to your points if only synthetic voice audio-narrated PowerPoint presentations were practiced in classrooms but I want to rectify that my view was more about synthetic voice audio-narrated PowerPoint presentations ONLINE and face-to-face narration with PowerPoint presentation by a lecturer in CLASS. I want also to say that at present high quality audio-narration presentations are available in some educational sites. For good quality of sound, you just have to search a good source and not to look for synthetic voice audio-narrated PowerPoint on YouTube, this may of course will lead you to your point of view, i.e. “the pronunciation by synthetic voice is not that clear”. It may be also that some students won’t understand the pronunciations the first time they listen to this kind of lecture but one who is used to it, it’s easy to be understand.
To Rishtee Nundloll
ReplyDeleteI like the points you have highlighted. I totally agree that the best application in classrooms is the face-to-face PowerPoint presentations by a lecturer. We people always search for human touch and warmth, especially for students in their studies. This is because we always get the need to be guided by someone who is knowledgeable and professional, so this might the case for online students. By the use of synthetic voice audio-narrated PowerPoint presentations, I think that they might feel some kind of assurance while listening to a voice lecturing them even thought it is computerized. So for some of us it might be of no use but for others it might be of great importance.
The study’s aim was to find out whether it was the synthetic voice narration, the voice audio narration or the face to face narration which was the most effective method in helping the students to gain a better quality of knowledge.
ReplyDeleteAfter conducting the research it was found that the face to face presented narration was the most favored by the students. According to me this is because all the criteria for a good understanding are put forward in this methodology: helpfulness, quality, warmth and familiarity. Moreover it is more interesting to go in a class when you are able to interact with a lecturer than being passive and only listening to a course which is already registered and with no possibility of asking questions. I think that the presence of lecturers could make classes less boring and in some cases they could even give advices so as to facilitate learning, therefore students would be able to gain the maximum.
However the combination of the three methods would be the best way in helping the students in acquiring knowledge.
From my past experience, I think learners pay more attention to natural voice audio-narration natural than synthetic voice audio-narration as natural voice perceived a higher quality and we are more familiar to it. Using synthetic voice audio-narration in class is not a bad idea but, sometimes learners may find it to boring due to its quality and we are not so familiar to it.
ReplyDeleteI think it is a good idea to explain contents using natural voice audio- narration first and then we can share the synthetic voice audio-narration file for personal use ( in case learners miss something or was absent for that lecture, they can catch it later)
Reply Yakshini:
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you when you said" Of course, face to face narrated presentation by students also proves to be very useful in the process of learning as it allows one to be creative, fluent, and persuasive, highly of all, it allows one to have eye contact with the lecturer thus, allowing one to be more determined. It is rightly accepted that ‘natural voice’ is preferred to ‘synthetic voice’ “. I’m myself experience it during one of my lectures. The lecturer eye contacts make you more alert and determine
I strongly agree with natural audio- narration. I would prefer a face to face interaction with a lecturer than the synthetic voice audio narration. This is because a student will be more attentive and focused when a lecturer is in front of him giving explanations. The student can also ask question if he is confused about something. Synthetic voice audio narration may be useful when lecturers are absent. Hence it prevents retardation of the syllabus. However synthetic voice audio will not be able to retain a student attention for long and this way of teaching might be monotonous leading to the distraction of the student. In a nut shell, both are helpful to students for learning.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what yakshini said that is in the absence of a lecturer the the narration of a topic with natural or synthesized voice could help student not to waste time.Also this can be very helpful as video lectures(with narration) could be sent to students through email for example during bad weathering where lectures are cancelled.
ReplyDeleteAlso I would like to add that some lecturers are not at ease while lecturing in front of all these students thus using real voice narration they can prepare the lectures before going to class and let the technology do the rest this would be beneficial to both lecturers as well as students.
I also agree with Mr caiyum,that synthetic narration is quicker but we have to bear in mind that there are different types of intelligence and degree of understandings. Some students may find it easy to have a lecture with a synthetic voice, whereas others can find it difficult to understand.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, we can consider the fact that students have different speed of taking notes. Some may be adapted to write quickly in class but some can lose notes because they cannot cope with the speed of the synthetic voice narration.
Of course a new educational technology compared to an old traditional method of teaching brings about pros and cons.
ReplyDeleteAs advantages of the normal human voice presentation compared to Synthesized voice one, the quality and the feeling to the ears of the listener is just too comfortable to complain about. There is the natural accordance between the ears and the natural voice. The synthesized voice on the other hand can prove to be annoying over a long span of time as there is no distinct accent and variation of tone. The sound of the 'robotic' voice itself is not familiar to the ears.
Secondly natural voice narration is easy to use as the lecturer or tutor only needs to speak and record the speech whereas using the synthesized voice, in the case of long lectures, not only time is wasted in typing the document to be played back but it is also a tiring task.
However the Synthesized voice presentation has its advantages. First of all speaking to a microphone for a long time can prove to be boring to the lecturer. As a solution he can write his lectures on a paper and give it to a typist to be typed into the computer.
Secondly the synthesized voice will be at a constant volume as compared to the natural voice which varies up and down and which is also affected by the background noise in the surrounding of the lecturer at the time of the record.
To me, by looking at the pros and cons, i find the natural voice presentation still better than the synthetic one.
Regarding what zaynah said:
ReplyDelete"In my opinion ,synthetic voice audio-narration and natural voice audio-narration both have their advantages and drawbacks.
Taking synthetic narration it could be useful in terms of time .i.e less time would be taken to complete a specific chapter or subject as time taken by natural narration.Also in situations where there is limited time to complete particular chapters or modules lecturers and teachers could use synthetic narration to complete these chapters...."
Not really my point of view. The narration of the lectures in both case will take the same time because i don't think that because it is a computer that it will narrate faster than a human being. If so would be the case then the students would have grasped nothing. In fact what is faster is the recording process and it is not the synthetic narration recording which is faster but on the contrary the human voice recording is faster since in this case the lecturer only has to speak to a microphone whereas the synthesized voice narration needs a text to be typed into the computer which is more time consuming.
from my opinion,the difference between the synthetic voice audio-narration and natural voice audio-narration is insignificant. I share the same opinion as to having a face-to-face narration as the message is better conveyed due to body language,there can be class participation, and doubt on the part of the student can be made clear by the lecturer on the spot whilst having only audio narration could lead to boredom after some minutes.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mevconhey on the fact that the body language, expression and the tone of the voice put emphasis on certain important parts in an explanation thus attracting our attention and till now this can only be done effectively by a lecturer, Mevconhey also put forward the fact that continuous progress of technology will surely bring improvement to the synthetic voice audio-narration systems and hopefully compensate those weak points. Unless this happened I think that most students will prefer a face-to- face narrated presentation rather than a synthetic voice audio-narration as well as natural voice audio-narration
ReplyDeleteIt very much friendly to assist a 'live' classroom with the lecturer along with a powerpoint presentation.
ReplyDeleteDrawbacks of the synthetic voice-narration :
1.No human contact,as student we cannot ask questions about things we could not grasp.There is no interactivity and no "replay".
2.It becomes boring and our mind gets distracted easily.
However,synthetic voice narration can be useful educational tool to teach students with some disabilities (blind and partially sighted)
Moreover,a powerpoint presentation with colours,pictures,animation and synthetic voices,all these ingredients together will definitely produce good results :) .
To Fabrice
ReplyDeletewe don't fall sleep during all movies,lol
However is that same synthetic voice is accompanies with a colourful, with pictures and few text in a Powerpoint presentation,don't you thing it will be useful?
TO Mohammed
This is not true.There exists a world of difference between a synthetic and a natural voice.We Mauritians,we use creole mostly as our communication means.Sometimes it becomes difficult to master everything 'said' by a synthetic voice.
I would have opted for the natural voice audio-narration to the synthetic voice audio-narration, because the former is an interactive and lively one. What makes a class interesting and not boring is the lecturer’s way of teaching, his talking manner, and change in tone, gestures and also the question-answer time. The probability of ignoring a lecture, like for a synthetic one where the lecture can be viewed again, is very low for the natural one. The problem with the synthetic voice audio-narration is that no personal attention can be given to a student. Hence that student query or difficulty will always remain a riddle for him. Nonetheless synthetic voice audio-narration also has some advantages in cases when the lecturer is absent or non-available, the slides can be viewed at any time and in cases where students have different learning paste. It is not necessarily for someone to grasp a lecture at the same time as another. So he can always come back to these and learn without any kind of pressures or fear of being behind.
ReplyDelete@ Yakshini:
ReplyDeleteI agree with when you said that both are highly important educational resources. Both are right in their own ways but just that it will depend upon the situation and also on the student. The interactivity, the on-spot questions and response is far more appreciated and understood rather than accumulating doubts and further complicate things.
In fact, synthetic voice can be useful in educational sector but from my view it will never replace natural voice. As seen in this article the students are more ease with the presentation with natural voice. The main reason for that is that student will be more capture with natural voice and more over will be more friendly and also pleasant to hear than a synthesis voice. Those tiny things make better to understand by student from my view.
ReplyDeleteSynthetic voice audio- narrated could be a useful tool in the learning sector. Lecturers could use synthetic voice audio- narrated power points in harsh time instead of cancelling lectures. This will also be a mean of teaching for handicapped teachers for example those who are dump. This will give better opportunities to these people in the educational sector. The experiments 1 and 2 shows that the learning gain to students is the same as face to face interaction. These experiments should have been repeated several times with the same subject, this would have produced differences in the learning gain. This is because this type of learning is quite boring in the long run, and students less attention to the lectures. Also student’s questions remain unanswered, and weaker students who need a second explanation will be at lost. Thus the learning gains become poorer. As far as for the quality of audio- narration, face-to- face narration and natural voice narration was preferred to synthesized voice, because this mean of learning is new, this should be initiated at the first schooling stage.
ReplyDeleteDear Supriya (comment 25th October 2011 21:13),
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you, since the software used for the synthetic voice narration will not take into consideration our mother tongue and the type of English we understand. Generally the best software developed come from the United States, where they generally speak American English, as far as where Mauritius is concerned we use British English. There might be some differences in the pronunciation of the words, making us disadvantageous.
I would rather be more at ease with the natural voice as the lecturer can both make a class lively by interacting with the students and at the same make it boring. But the natural voice tend to be more friendly than the synthetic voice as with the synthetic voice student would be bored much more rapidly and their is a chance that they could be quickly distracted and as such i am more at ease with the natural voice. It does not mean that the synthetic voice is not useful, it could be use to make a powerpoint presentation more lively where the natural voice should also, however, be included and for other such uses
ReplyDeleteSynthetic voice is a viable alternative to natural voice audio-narration. However, natural voice is much more appealing to people as unlike synthetic voice, it carries a certain nuance and even though not coming straight from the mouth of a person, it seems much more humanistic than a voice which does not exist but which merely mimics real voice.
ReplyDeleteAs such, natural voice audio-narration is much more likely to be accepted by the masses than its counterpart.
As Sharmeen said, more experiments should be made in order to be able to implement this new way of teaching, perhaps this could be done by introducing these new technologies first in classes which are not examinable in order to see how well the students assimilate the information and then gradually put it in other classes where a very strict monitoring should be done in order to verify that that the system is in fact viable.
ReplyDeleteI agree with caiyum that teaching will take less time using synthetic voice audi-narration and i also agree that natural voice cannot be replaced as studetns wil get difficulty
ReplyDeletein coping with the new means of communcation
however it is not always boring for everybody to listen to computed voice dictating lectures because it depends from person to person.It is true that there is no additional explanation
when using synthetic voice.Well this discussion is a remains a debatable one since some find it good while others rebut it.
Synthetic voice audio-narration and natural voice audio-narration both play an important part in the learning process. Studies between these two types of audio-narration have been conducted and mixed reviews were collected. In this study, there have been 3 experiments, where experiment 1 and 2 consisted of a comparison between synthetic voice audio-narration and natural voice audio-narration, and experiment 3 consisted of recognizing the gains that that achieves in the learning process and qualitative factors in a face-to-face narrated presentation. The data collected resulted in the fact that there are minimal differences in learning gains in students between these two types of audio-narration. For the quality of audio-narration, natural voice narration and face-to-face narration is of higher quality and is preferred by students, even though synthetic voice audio-narrated resources could be a useful tool in educational settings.
ReplyDeleteA Synthetic Voice Actor is a synthetic voice program that voices a character. It's not used a lot, especially when union rules would make that difficult. It's usually used for extremely robotic voices. Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal language text into speech; other systems render symbolic linguistic representations like phonetic transcriptions into speech.
ReplyDeleteThe experiments took into consideration the aspect of familiarity which is sure that a face-to-face narration will be more familiar to a student than a synthetic voice audio-narration. The listener will have a face-to-face interaction with the speaker and he will understand in a better way what information the lecturer is providing. Learning gains will be the same as same information is provided, but a natural voice presentation provides eye-to-eye contacts and all those aspects which make it easier and more pleasant for a student rather than a synthetic voice which will seem unfamiliar. The disadvantage that can have a natural voice narration is that the lecturer is not a good orator and lacks some interaction skills.
ReplyDeleteto humeira,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with whatever you have said concerning face to face narrated presentation dear. However you have mentioned that voice audio narration could be a waste of time. Well I cannot see it as being a waste of time, on the contrary it will save time. What I mean is if a lecture is absent and cannot come to lecture for a long period of time, instead of losing time we can use audio narration. This will definitely prevent retardation of the syllabus in some way. What do you think ?
In fact synthetic voice could be helpful in the teaching process but I am convinced that this method of teaching will never equal a lecturer teaching. For me, natural voice is better because no synthetized voice could show the facial expression and delicateness when narrating a specific text! Being exposed to voice syntghesiszed lectures , I can definitely point it out that not many of my classmates enjoy the lectures , instead are bored and find the class monotonous which isn`t a proper way of parting knowledge,
ReplyDeleteThe fact of using voice audio narrated instead of a human being presenting a project or topic via a PowerPoint presentation will eventually affect the learning process of many students. All students in a class do not learn at the same speed and in order to vary the speed of teaching, only the presence of a teacher can do that by varying the speed of his speech. The use of body language, facial expression and eye contact of a tutor are the key aspects of the teaching process which encourage students to interact via tutor questions and answers, and also queries regarding related topics.
ReplyDelete@ Curpen
ReplyDeleteThe things that really make a big comparison between synthetic voice and natural one its that the students prefer the use of body language, facial expression and eye contact of a tutor which helps them to interact better with the teacher and this teacher-student relationship cannot be done using synthetic voice.
The article clearly show what i believe in,that is the human touch in learning.Even if synthetic voice brings with it clear articulation,it will still lack the presence that a natural voice from a real human being brings.Nevertheless results in the article indicate no variation in the learning of the student.I believe that this technology could come in handy in areas where there is a lack of qualified lecturers.However i would still opt for natural face to face narration ,it would give me the feeling that i am being taught something real.
ReplyDeleteSynthetic voice can indeed be very helpful in teaching. However, I still believe that face to face contact with the tutor is better. Whether its via video conferencing or in a classroom, I think that its there is an advantage in face to face contact since the facial expressions can actually be very revealing to the tutor and he/she can easily sense whether the students are actually on the right track when it comes to understanding.
ReplyDeleteMoreover I also think that synthetic voice can be improved a lot for better clarity and with the rapid developments between computer and human interaction, it is definitely going to be a very good means of teaching in the near future.
To Moganaden Curpen:
ReplyDeleteI share your opinion.
In fact I also believe that natural voice and direct contact between tutor and student is still the best way to teach and study till now.
As I've previously said facial expression can be very revealing to the tutor who can thus be able to know whether the students are actually understanding everything. Moreover the tutor can also be more explicit while he is using hand gestures while explaining ! Indeed its more friendly and interactive but perhaps that with the rapid changes in technology, there will be a way for synthesis voice to be more friendly.
In fact the idea of introducing multimedia presentation using voice principle for educational purpose is not bad however it has its disadvantages.This is so because the speech made maybe monotone and transfer of information is restricted in contrast to a face to face interaction. voice multimedia presentation alone is not efficient to education but with the combination with image and text multimedia it can work sucessful.
ReplyDeleteSynthetic voice audio-narration resources, is of course a useful tool in educational settings, this is because; it will always be a helpful tool whenever necessary. If said that students preferred face-to-face narration with a PowerPoint presentation by the lecturer as a first choice, this is because, they are used to have someone in front of them and teaching and explaining things to them. It is a natural instinct of a way to feel secure by learning with someone who may even make mistakes while talking. And this is what actually, make students more active in a way and make them feel open to participate and establish contact with the speaker, to clear misunderstandings and make corrections whenever necessary. Of course, it is not always the case that this will prompt students to participate. But the fact is that having someone familiar, who you can relate to and feel the warmth and comfort in the voice will put anyone more at ease, either it being a face-to-face narration or natural audio narration. However, there is a tendency in the human nature to judge the one talking to you. In a presentation, for example, this can be explained as the fact that some can like the confidence and imposing nature of one lecturer to one who is calmer, and vice-versa. Or, some may pay more attention to the facial expressions and body language that the speaker is able to express with respect to the subject being discussed.
ReplyDeleteThese depend on the preference of each individual but these are also what attract students’ focus but in some way may derive judgment.
Again in term of judgment, in a natural voice narration, the voice may be more appreciated or not, depending on an individual point of view. Whereas synthesize voice rather put forward more or less the same tone, clarity and stability.
Synthetic voice audio-narration therefore, does not give time to such judgment to rise among students. Also, the aim to focus on the narration to understand for sure the matter will be more important. Therefore either if it is a face-to-face narration or natural voice narration or synthetic voice audio-narration, if there is focus on the subject, there will be positive result and no significant differences in learning gains. Synthetic voice-audio narration may be boring in the way that there will be no way for interaction and listeners may become unfocused. But this may even arise in a face-to-face narration.
But Synthetic voice audio-narration and natural voice narration can clearly be used more often, nevertheless, synthetic voice narration will be more useful if recording of voice is troublesome for a narrator and that is why again, technology will surely facilitate tasks. But personally, I prefer face-to-face narration than synthesize voices and natural audio voice narration because I appreciate learning where there are interactions at any moment between individuals. But learning with synthesized voices/natural recorded ones will also do.
I would go for the result that natural voice narration and face to face narration are much better than synthetic voice narration. It is also true that synthetic voice audio narrated resource can be useful, but it depends in which field or for what kind of study it is used. Some studies really need face to face power point presentation because sometimes students ask questions, making the class interactive.
ReplyDeleteFace to face power point presentation would be my first choice and as there is no significant difference between synthetic narrated voice learning resource and natural narrated voice learning resource, both would be my second choice.
The quality of a speech synthesizer is judged by its similarity to the human voice and by its ability to be understood. An intelligible text-to-speech program allows people with visual impairments or reading disabilities to listen to written works on a home computer. Many computer operating systems have included speech synthesizers since the early 1980s. With rapid advances in computer speech technology, TTS (text-to-speech) synthesis is becoming increasingly attractive as a supplement or even as an alternative to the human narration. This paper explores the potential of TTS synthesis in Web lectures. I propose WhiteboardVCR, a new approach. The system supports synchronization of slide markups and slide switching with a narration. The narration is a combination of video, human voice, and speech synthesis. Users can create a presentation on the fly or at leisure time, and edit it before publishing to the Web.
ReplyDelete@ Ameenah.
ReplyDelete‘……a lack behind in the education.’
You are saying that technology there will be a disadvantage in the educational system but this can happen in many other situations.
But if there is a power cut, it is true that compared to the PRESENTATION being totally interrupted (with synthetic/natural audio narration), it will not be too much of a problem if there was a face-to-face narration being conducted even if PowerPoint presentation is not being projected, the speaker can agree to continue.
I think you may agree with me on the fact that familiarity is a significant factor for rather everyone. Either if it is a face-to-face narration or a natural audio narration, these two will be preferred.
You said that there will be no interaction with synthetic/natural audio narration.
And I agree because if there was at least a little bit of incentive to have a chance to participate, one will certainly take it.
According to me, through this article Study of student understanding and learning in multi-media presentations using human and synthesized voices based on voice principle, there are various points which relate educational technology in exposing students to synthetic voice audio-narration against natural voice audio in order to evaluate them in a qualitative way. E-learning is crucial for disabled students and for those working and studying.
ReplyDeleteBut at the same time we ponder if traditional methods of teaching like classroom teaching are in the modern world. Will a teacher or a trainer eventually become dispensable? Will textbooks and other reference books cease to exist? Will there be no schools and colleges in future? Will e-learning companies replace traditional publishing companies?
Natural voice is perceived as more effective as human beings are more prone and comfortable to real-life situations
People prefer face to face interaction instead of any types of presentation, such as power points, chart or video conference types of meeting. This clearly shows that human warmth is still a predominant force.
Using voice audio-narration in multimedia presentations is indeed very helpful for students and makes them understand the content of the presentation much better especially for those students suffering from visual impairment, dyslexia and other reading difficulties. Natural voice audio-narration as said in the article is much preferred. This is due to its better quality, warmth and familiarity associated to it compared to the synthetic voice audio-narration. Synthetic voice audio-narration is a useful tool in education settings but as far as possible I would suggest using face to face narration as there is interactivity between the students and the lecturer which makes the students understand the particular topic much better. If the students have not understood something, the lecturer can clarify it instantly. My second choice would then be natural voice audio- narration as students would feel more at ease with their lecturer’s voice explaining to them rather than the synthetic voice audio-narration.
ReplyDeleteStudents preferred face-to-face narration with a PowerPoint presentation by the lecturer as a first choice, this is because, they are used to have someone in front of them and teaching and explaining things to them. Many computer operating systems have included speech synthesizers since the early 1980.
ReplyDeleteStudents preferred having a power point presentation with a lecturer, because, if the lecturer will be there to answer their questions and will elaborate the points using examples from daily life. Therefore, students have better understanding of the subject. If synthetic voice is used, then who will answer the queries and after sometime it will become boring.
ReplyDeleteThe multimedia presentations is a powerful tool that help to captivate the attention of students it makes the class more lively as they have a visual representation of what is said by the lecturer and the images ,diagrams, background help to make the subject more interesting. This technology really helps students to have a better understanding of the subject but too much technology may be too much...
ReplyDeleteI think that the use of synthetic voice audio-narration in the Mauritian context is not adequate as student needs interaction and discussion in order to move forward and the synthetic voice will not interest many students. May be the experiment 2 will be more adequate as here the student have a feeling of familiarity with the voice of their lecturer and it is easier for them to understand what is being said. But still if some students have miss a part of the lecture there will be no going back. This hypothesis testing proved that there was no great difference between the automated voice but the student preferred the face to face . this demonstrate clearly that even if the technologies are essentials in our daily life but the technology will never be able to replace a human being. The traditional way was proved to be more efficient .this article shows the utility of the technologies but it also shows that people are not prepared to use it.
What Justine said is rather obvious a machine will never be able to replace perfectly a human being. The interaction between the lecturer and the student is essential for their understanding. Maybe the synthetic voice could be used during examination to remind the rules to students. When the synthetic is narrating the invigilators could distribute the papers and if there is any misunderstanding the students can refer to the invigilators.
ReplyDelete@ Warren
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that face to face presentation is a more effective means of teaching. However, technological advancements in the education sector cannot be ignored. In this 21st century, students need to learn through these educational technologies like the PowerPoint presentation with the synthetic voice audio-narration or natural voice audio-narration as educational technologies are not the end of quality education but rather a means by which education can be made more pleasant and effective to learn and teach. So a voice audio-narration multimedia presentation supplement with a human touch like the tutor being present in the class is preferable. Thus if the students have not understood something, they can clarify it with their lecturer after the voice audio-narration presentation.
In his case human and synthesized voices didn’t have any significant difference however student preferred face-to-face narration with the Power point presentation mainly because of the human touch. In education, new and more sophisticated technology has to be used however it is essential to have a lecturer as a guide as the student are still in their learning process. Moreover in the experiment 1 and 2 their cannot have any interactivity, like for example asking questions or having more details on certain topics as student will hear only what is recorded.
ReplyDeleteInvestigation of student understanding and learning in multimedia presentations using human and synthesized voices based on the ‘voice principle’
ReplyDeleteThe face-to-face narration is the most natural method of conveying a message. However, with the revolution of technologies, life has become easier with text-to-speech programs. But, on a personal point of view, I would rather choose a face-to-face narration with PowerPoint presentation. This method enables the student to ask questions if in doubt whenever, in between the explanation. Hence, it accounts for better understanding.
:)
In fact, it is evident that the experiment results would reveal that natural voice-audio narration is preferred to synthetic voice-audio narration. This is explained by the fact that learners are more familiar with the natural voice narration. Also, the learners can interact with the speaker during a face to face presentation in contrast with a synthetic voice presentation. However both have nearly the same effect on learning gains, so that it is not impossible to input synthetic voice, i.e. the use of multimedia in presentations.
ReplyDelete@ Stephanie
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you that this technology cannot be applied as Mauritian students are not used to it, and they will have difficulties to adapt to it…but we cannot refute it at all, the world is changing and technology is changing and is becoming more complex.
According to the results, it is clear that both synthetic and natural voice audio narration have almost the same learning outcome. But I also would prefer a face to face interaction during a power point presentation. Firstly, the way the lecturer expresses himself give the students a better understanding of that particular topic and the different question arising can be solved on the spot. Furthermore, the class is much more interactive which would be almost impossible with an audio narration. With the rapid evolution in technology, maybe in the future synthetic voice that will be more friendly but still there will be a lack of communication between lecturer and student. And also at a given time, the student may find the class boring and will not pay attention.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Drishti Rampul about the fact that synthetic voice will lack human input and therefore no emphasis is laid on important parts of the topic.
Synthetic voice audio-narrated resources could indeed be a useful tool in educational settings as they allow environmental barriers to be removed for people with a wide range of disabilities and offer a wider range of different accents and voices compared to as natural voice audio narration. Concerning the quality of the synthetic voice audio narration, today, formant synthesizers can produce high quality, recognizable speech if the parameters are properly adjusted, and these systems can work very well for some applications. It's still hard to get fully natural sounding speech from these when the process is fully automatic as it is from all synthesis methods.
ReplyDeletevarsha: face-to-face narration is far better than a synthetic voice-narrated as the students can better understand the topic and can ask questions in return . this permits the students to locate themselves. the students should be able to find the helpfulness, quality, warmth and familiarity they search.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the results, it is clear that both synthetic and natural voice audio narration have almost the same learning outcome. But I also would prefer a face to face interaction during a power point presentation. Firstly, the way the lecturer expresses himself give the students a better understanding of that particular topic and the different question arising can be solved on the spot. Furthermore, the class is much more interactive which would be almost impossible with an audio narration. With the rapid evolution in technology, maybe in the future synthetic voice that will be more friendly but still there will be a lack of communication between lecturer and student. And also at a given time, the student may find the class boring and will not pay attention.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Drishti Rampul about the fact that synthetic voice will lack human input and therefore no emphasis is laid on important parts of the topic.
Reply to Guillaume Cecile:
ReplyDeleteI agree with you concerning the fact that there are different aspect of our speech that helps in learning. Different subjects require different types of learning systems. As you have rightly said, softwares that mimic our speech can never be able to stimulate it properly or give it a sense of expression, for example with face-to-face techniques, we can benefit from facial expression.
In my opinion, natural voice audio-narration is more preferable for presentations. Students have the tendency to pay more attention to what is said face-to-face. The class becomes livelier and the students may feel more motivated to participate. Synthetic voice audio-narration is more helpful to disabled people such as the famous Stephen Hawking. In a class, speech synthesis may not grab the attention of students. This is why it is not surprising to note that natural voice narration and face-to-face narration have been perceived to be of higher quality.
ReplyDeleteChetan is being reasonable when he says there is no interaction between the artificial voice and the students. Thus, there is no certainty that the information that has been passed has been well understood or not. Students cannot ask anyone about their queries.
ReplyDeleteAccording to me, natural voice narrated presentations are more preferred in our educational system. Having a face-to-face narration is much better, with the presence of a lecturer who can solve any queries that we students can have and make the class more interactive. The class will be less boring and students will not find it difficult to assimilate. Synthetic audio narrated presentations are boring sometimes as there is no face-to-face interaction but it forces students to concentrate and to do some research works. Unlike natural voice presentations, lecturers explain everything but sometimes there is no feedback from students. Hence, from my point of view both of the voice presentations are useful but natural voice presentations with PowerPoint are much better and interesting.
ReplyDeleteStudies have tried to change the way of transmitting a message through the synthetic voice audio-narrated based on various criteria. As said in the article, the human voice is the favorable form of passing the exact message in the most appropriate way even though the synthetic voice proves to show positive results. However, I maintain that face to face interaction continues to rule as being the primary form of transmitting a good message
ReplyDeleteIn the coming years it is clear that most lectures will be done through the synthetic voice audio-narration only. In a way or other it captures the attention of the students and hence the students are more motivated to work. Lecture under this method of learning tend to consists of pictures, moving text and even sound thus making reading easy and interesting. The students may learn at their own pace and at any time of the day and are free to express their opinions and may even comment on their friends work. But however at a given time, the students tend to get bored and working too much online can cause physical problems.
ReplyDeleteHowever results from experiments show that most students prefer natural voice narration over synthetic voice audio narration. They would rather opt for a teacher to be present with them thus allowing for greater interaction to take place and moreover greater interaction means greater success. Furthermore during a presentation lecture, the lecturer can elaborate on the topic being covered. Questions asked by students are discussed with the whole class.
Both synthetic voice audio and face to face & natural voice narration are important factors of learning but still many people have a preference for the ancient way of teaching that is face to face.
I think that all the types of learning resources mentioned are indeed advantageous. However, i will also highlight that face-to-face narration with a PowerPoint presentation by the lecturer will be a priority among others since it is more interactive and anyone is free to raise questions if there is a misunderstanding of lecture notes, and the student is likely to obtain a crystal clear view of the answer as compared to other learning resources.
ReplyDeleteIt is not surprising that students prefer face-to-face narration with PowerPoint presentation; even I prefer the same. In fact, the human mind is used to the natural voice and human warmth; hence a face-to-face lecture helps to capture the students’ attention and promote their understanding. Moreover, a face-to-face narration is interactive; the students can ask questions to the lecturer to clarify their doubts on the spot. This is not the case with real and synthetic audio narration.
ReplyDeleteReply to Guillaume Cecile (14 October 2011 21:21)
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that different tones and paces contribute to a large extent in learning and make it even more interesting. During a face-to-face or real voice audio narration, the use of different tones and gestures can make a class lively. On the other hand, a synthetic narration lacks these elements. The lecture might become monotonous and boring. Students might be distracted by other things and at the end of the day they will not grasp much about the lecture.
A machine will never be able to replace perfectly a human being. In a multimedia presentation power slide, the speech made by the machine can be monotone and transfer of information is restricted in contrast to a face to face interaction. Voice multimedia presentation alone is not efficient to education but with the combination with image and text multimedia it can work successful. Having a lecturer presenting a lecture or power slide show, we can ask the lecturer to give us more details about the topic being showed or presented. We can ask him questions about the topic. The lecturer can break the flow of the class that is; give a short break so as to refresh ourselves and crack up a joke so as to make the environment lively
ReplyDeleteI agree with the results of this study. I also prefer that the lecturer do his class with a powerpoint presentation. This gives students the opportunity to make queries and ask the lecturer to explain again if they have not understood. The lecturer can then answer questions and even find other ways to make certain concepts clearer on the spot. All this is not possible when synthetic voice audio-narration is used.
ReplyDeleteNamrata KUTWAROO
ReplyDeleteAre you sure about what you are saying?
Is synthetic voice more appropriate than natural voice? I don't think so, as listening to a continous synthetic voice make you feel asleep and make your mind diverge from the class to a different place
Semavadhi Paupoo:
ReplyDeleteIndeed no kind of latest technology can replace a lecturer’s way of teaching. As you said the lecturer gestures, talking manner and question-answer time contribute a lot in making the class sound interesting and worth to follow. However the fact that with synthetic voice audio narration, one is never left behind, is an important plus point to consider. ^^
I do agree that natural voice audio-narration is the most preferred audio type for lectures.
ReplyDeleteDuring lectures, students tend to take notes of what lecturers say. While lecturers are speaking, students can stop them and ask to repeat a particular sentence. But with the synthetic voice, no instant stoppage and repetition is possible. The slide and voice should be rewind, thus losing time for searching.
reply to justine:
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you. Synthetic Voices lacks the "humanly" attributes of the lecturer explaining to his students. The class is indeed more interactive when students can ask questions and the lecturer has more chance of capturing the student's attention. And most of all, as you said, these new mathods will NEVER replace traditional methods.
Synthetic voice audio-narrated resources are actually very useful in the educational sector. Pre-literate young children will be able to learn how to read. By highlighting the words currently being read, the child is able to follow as the computer reads on and thus, helping him to learn the words easily. Moreover, reading speed, being adjustable, can be adapted to a learner at any skill level. Text- to- speech is also used in teaching foreign languages; students learning a foreign language can improve their pronunciations to perfection. Furthermore and most important, speech synthesis helps people who have a range of reading difficulties for example, people with dyslexia and those with no functional vision in overcoming their handicap.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, what is most important in learning from what we have heard and this information is understood by the students and that it gets engraved in the student’s memory. I share the opinions as the students who had taken part in that experiment. It clearly demonstrates that audio is crucial in learning; texts alone do not contribute towards motivating students to learn nor giving them a better understanding of the information the tutor is trying to convey. As the research shows, the tutor’s own explanations along with slides are preferred over notes alone . Learning through listening with the combination of digital texts exhibit better expression; texts and audio gives better knowledge results. The first hand knowledge conveyed by the tutor are more understandable than lecture notes alone or along with synthesized voice.
ReplyDeleteTo Guillaume Cecile
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you that face to face interaction is much better than a talking computer …but in different aspects other than your points stated. Intonation and pace are no longer points to be dwelt upon because recently, voice quality has improved to such an extent where it is difficult to tell between a talking computer and human speech.
There was no significant difference in learning gains in students using a learning resource with synthetic voice audio narration as compared to natural voice audio narrations.Both resources have their advantages and drawbacks.Most students prefer natural voice narrated learning resource, as the class is more interactive and there is better communication between the lecturer and the students, the students may ask any questions to then lecturer and the student will thus learn more.However, synthetic voice audio narration may be very useful to physically or mentally disabled person.Face to face narrated presentation is better depending on the subject being studied.
ReplyDeletei totally aggree to what Pouven Nirsimloo said. their is indeed no means which can replace the facial expression, explanation and gestures that a tutor do to convey to his/her maximum the information required. Maybe with some more modifications, the clarity of synthesized voice can be improved and thus be a more helpful tool for learning in the near future.
ReplyDeleteSince the past few years multimedia has occupied an important place in the teaching process. It has been of great help to convey ideas need to be explored. Learning is much more interesting in multimedia presentation as along with text we can also have images, videos, sounds and even special effects emphasizing the main ideas of the topic.
ReplyDeleteAs far as these experiments are concerned, I have noted that in both experiment 1 and 2, there is no need for students to take note while the presentation as they can be given a copy of the presentation afterwards. Experiment 2 gives a more personal touch to the teaching process as the voice of the tutors is used to convey the ideas. A student will not feel the absence of the teacher and hence would show no lack of concentration in class. For experiment 3, the teacher itself would be present. The body language, facial expression, eye contact and other gestures are important to make a class lively. Students would always be tuned to their class as the teacher can be a source of inspiration for them by sharing his personal experiences with the students. Moreover, the teacher can help in clearing any doubt immediately.
As we all know perfection does not exist, so it is certain that each experiment has its drawback. In both experiment 1 and 2 knowledge delivered to the student is restricted. Student would get accessed only to notes available in the in the presentation in text format. Additional notes taken on an individual basis would be non existence in such type of class. Moreover, students having any doubt in his/her mind, he will not be able to clear it immediately. This can cause a worse problem if their doubt(s) needed to be cleared is connected to other topics as well. Lastly, in experiment 3 the only drawback I could notice is that no class would be conducted in the absence of the teacher.
(Reply to Chetan Seereekissoon ) - I do agree with Chetan, experiment 3 is appropriate since there is face to face interaction between the teacher and the students. In such a way, the presence of the teacher will have a great impact on the students and the two way process communication will be of great help both for the teacher and the students. By having the feedbacks from the students , the teacher will have an idea of where the students really stand and can hence sort out problems faced by the students which is not possible with experiment 1 and 2.
ReplyDeleteIn my angle of view, I can say that synthetic voice is essential for educational sector, BUT, for sure it cannot replace the traditional face-to-face teaching. But this help student to listen to this as many times they want to, which a lecturer won’t do, that is, explain and re-explain the same thing again and again! Personally I would prefer the face-to-face and whatever presentation by natural voice!
ReplyDeleteI think that these experiments about synthetic voice audio-narration and natural voice audio-narration could be very helpful in the future if learners are more exposed to off-campus/school learning. But for instance I think that most classes should be conducted using natural voice narration. Firstly because these experiments have proved no considerable difference in learning gain and secondly I think that students do not want to be treated as machines. We should use technology in the learning process but not at the expense of human contact. For me this is why students preferred face-to-face narration during a PowerPoint presentation because this guarantees human interaction.
ReplyDeleteInvestigation of student understanding and learning in multimedia presentations using human and synthesized voices based on the “voice principle”.
ReplyDeleteThere is no significant difference in learning gains in students using a learning resource with synthetic voice audio narration as compared to natural voice audio narration. Both synthetic and natural audio narration has their advantages and drawbacks. Many students may prefer a PowerPoint presentation with natural audio narration to synthetic audio narration. The tutor’s voice is more familiar and the students may better understand. Also, a face to face narrated presentation may be preferred by most students as this helps the student to better understand their work. The class is more interactive the students can ask questions and the tutor can explain to the students
I agree to Gopala Palanee as facial expressions have a great role to play in the action of transmitting messages.
ReplyDeleteSynthetic voice audio-narrated has been an option for the researchers.However,the best way to convey messages has been the human voice in the experiments but still face to face interaction is the most dominant one as facial expressions have a major role to play in conversations.
ReplyDeleteToday we ride a bicycle, few years later we are driving a car. Today we are using computers, few years later we are using laptops. Today we are using Pentium’s processor few months later we are using dual core processors. Every era for example methods of transport, communication are being evolved to be better-off in many ways by the grace of technology.
ReplyDeleteTechnology in an specific educational field, the human voice versus synthetic voice. Experiments have been carried out to know how effective these ways of teaching are, in terms of helpfulness; quality; warmth; familiarity.
According to me although we are trying to evolve in phase with the evolving technology my credit goes for a natural voice audio narration because this kind of lectures is more helpful as doubt are cleared instantly by asking question, and is more realistic.
Experiments proved that neither natural voice nor synthetic voice is more or less effective than one another. But indeed natural voice is preferred statistically among students.
however, synthetic voice is not useless, it could be used for disabled people for example blind people.
According to me such a technology helps students in their learning, especially for disabled students and all. It helps them to understand the subject in a more rational and innovative way and the level of comprehension would be much higher in this case. Natural voice was perceived as higher quality as human beings are more prone and comfortable to real-life situations. The synthetic voice is usually fabricated and it depends on the software being used. Most of the time, the quality of synthetic voice by the computer is seen as being much inferior.
ReplyDeleteBeing a student myself, i agree with the students that participated in the experiments. Its true that synthetic and natural voice narration are almost the same but the natural one is better. It is more understandable by humans. I also would prefer a face to face interaction during a power point presentation. Firstly, the way the lecturer expresses himself give the students a better understanding of that particular topic and the different question arising can be solved on the spot. Furthermore, the class is much more interactive which would be almost impossible with an audio narration.
ReplyDeleteReply to what Stephanie had said on 28 octobre 2011 03.42
ReplyDeleteMultimedia is indeed a powerful tool that helps to captivate the attention of students, the class become livelier and thus helps students in learning. I agree that Mauritian rather prefer the face to face presentation.
i agree with Jeish_29,it's still hard to get fully natural sounding speech from these when the process is fully automatic as it is from all synthesis methods but somehow it more profitable to experience the natural voice compare to the synthetic one as lots of requirements such as proper equipments are necessary and they are quite expensive.
ReplyDelete@nellisha,,i agree with you, the human touch is very important. Even though the technologies are better nowadays, there is still an empty space to be filled by the human touch. Its the most important part. As a student, i myself prefer the face-to-face to power point presentation. The face-to-face narration is more realistic than power point presentations.
ReplyDeleteThis article, and definitely the experiment, is really interesting ! After I`ve read it, I thought about the film I.A- Artificial intelligence replacing the human mind!!!!! Are we approaching this era? And concerning learning technologies, that is, this experiment-using a `synthetic voice` versus a `natural audio-narration`, it opens up on new avenues to be reflected upon. As we grapple along consistent development of new learning technologies , are we reflecting on the `presence` or `absence ` of our humanity-that is , in simpler terms on what makes us human; our ability to use our physicality to transmit knowledge, not just some cold synthetic-like or recorded voice but just having a human presence to connect with us. The experiment showed that students prefer face-to-face lecture and natural voice narration. Though synthetic voice audio-narration could be a useful tool for online courses and modules. Still, there is a need to careful and to generalize these tools. They are useful for some circumstances but not for all.
ReplyDelete@Zaina
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with Zaina , when she says that nothing can replace the presence of a lecturer. Though, as she suggests, in some critical case- for instance if the lecturer is absent, `natural voice narration`, can be a useful tool. But how about the immediacy of the moment? If the student has a question during the lecture ? The `natural voice narration` ironically cannot reply back.
I totally agree with Justine.. Indeed, the new technologies Synthetic are very helpful to students for learning purposes.. it is mOre helpful fOr presentation purposes such as image interaction. It facilitate the task of teachers but I dnt think that such a system can replace a qualified Lecturer fully.. Hence we cannot use the same skill for everyday teaching as students will be distracted and bored.. I truely believe that a teacher’s skill is much more powerful in terms of understanding..
ReplyDeleteIndeed such kind of technology is really useful for Learning purposes.. The wOrlD is evolving second by second.. Technologies are evolving much more in the educational field.. In my point of view both Synthetic and natural audio narration has their advantages n drawbacks.. I am fully confident that in the coming years all schools n universities will be using these kind of technologies in order to benefit for better presentation purposes n for innovation hence I believe that at the beginning students will be motivated to work with such kind of technologies but with time it can prove to be monotonous n boring.
ReplyDeleteInvestigation of student understanding and learning in multimedia presentations using human and synthesized voices based on the ‘voice principle’
ReplyDeleteWell here, according to me, it makes student at ease for a face-to-face PowerPoint presentation by the lecturer/educator as such type of narration in learning courses is a powerful means of improving the efficacy of the material. Adding audio and video will also result in better understanding of the learning material. By the use of the face-to-face PowerPoint presentation by the lecturer/educator will surely keep the students engaged, thus students will not get bored and hence the class will be still alive. A for a face-to-face narration surely adds an element of interest and engagement as well as it provides an element authenticity.
Yet, sometimes this learning style can prove to be boredom as repeating and repeating the on-screen text can irritate the students/learners and they might also feel sleepy.
In conclusion, it can be deduced that synthetic voice can always be useful in appropriate circumstances (like for disable persons), where it is difficult for a face-to-face to act.
It is doubtless that "natural voice narration" is preferred to "synthetic voice narration", since the tone of the explanation, the presence of natural human touch to the presentation is more attention-catching, and less boring to the student.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as the experiments have demonstrated, narrated presentation cannot beat face-to-face presentation in any aspect, be it learning gains, attention span etc. Also, face-to-face narration allows for interactivity between the students and the teacher, which is essential in the learning process, contributing to the development of the students' critical thinking.
The experiments proved that students are more at ease and familiar with having a teacher explaining in front of a presentation.It is in human nature to interact and to socialise.The natural voice seems more appropriate than the synchronised one as we can hear the different type of pronunciation and articulation but also the tone while saying something which needs to be capitalise.The synchronised voice will lack in expressions but it may also be useful in case where people with sight problem wish to understand a presentation found in a slide.But for learning purposes the teacher is most appropriate followed by a presentation with a natural voice.
ReplyDeleteIndeed technologies are evolving more in the educational field and it has proven to be useful for learning purposes.In fact there is no difference between synthetic voice narration and natural voice narration.Well,according to me,i think that natural voice narration is preferred to synthetic voice narration as there is a face to face with the students and lectures.This face to face helps the class to become interactive and interesting.It also helps the students to clear their doubts.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the results of this study. I also prefer that the lecturer do his class with a powerpoint presentation. This gives students the opportunity to make queries and ask the lecturer to explain again if they have not understood. The lecturer can then answer questions and even find other ways to make certain concepts clearer on the spot. All this is not possible when synthetic voice audio-narration is used.
ReplyDeletereply to justine:
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you. Synthetic Voices lacks the "humanly" attributes of the lecturer explaining to his students. The class is indeed more interactive when students can ask questions and the lecturer has more chance of capturing the student's attention. And most of all, as you said, these new mathods will NEVER replace traditional methods.
It is not surprising that students prefer face-to-face narration with PowerPoint presentation; even I prefer the same. In fact, the human mind is used to the natural voice and human warmth; hence a face-to-face lecture helps to capture the students’ attention and promote their understanding. Moreover, a face-to-face narration is interactive; the students can ask questions to the lecturer to clarify their doubts on the spot. This is not the case with real and synthetic audio narration.
ReplyDeleteReply to Guillaume Cecile (14 October 2011 21:21)
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that different tones and paces contribute to a large extent in learning and make it even more interesting. During a face-to-face or real voice audio narration, the use of different tones and gestures can make a class lively. On the other hand, a synthetic narration lacks these elements. The lecture might become monotonous and boring. Students might be distracted by other things and at the end of the day they will not grasp much about the lecture.
Investigation of student understanding and learning in multimedia presentations using human and synthesized voices based on the ‘voice principle’
ReplyDeleteThe utilization of multimedia in the educational field has proved to be a very useful tool in enabling students to understand and interpret information more easily and quickly. When we concentrate on the audio setting, we can observe that adding sound to a slide show enhances its ability to deliver a message. Through some experiments that have been implemented, it is assumed that a learner do not pay any particular attention whether the voice is a synthetic one or a natural one…since the results obtained are almost the same in both cases. Though the helpfulness and the quality were here, there were no warmth and familiarity, as when compared to the lectures that are delivered by a person standing in from of the class and explaining the slides. Voice narration (auto-running slides) makes no room for interaction…that is, if anyone has a question during the presentation, he/she won’t be able to ask it on the spot, or else the person will have to wait at the end of the presentation. In contrast, if there was a face-to-face interaction, the lecturer could be interrupted his/her go to deal with questions, responses… From my vantage point of view, I do accept that an audio narration in PowerPoint presentations is a nice thing, however, it is better when it comes directly (in live) from a lecturer, because after all, machines cannot replace the presence of people!!!
According to me, Aurelie's comment is excellent in that natural voice narration is better than synthetic voice audio narration in that there is two-way traffic communication between students and lecturer as compared to the other one where there can be technical problems and it is time consuming
ReplyDeleteNatural voice narration is the good for giving lectures.It promotes a lively environment.However, with the synthetic voice audio narration, the mind get easily diverted and it is boring. Student would rather fell asleep than paying attention to what is being said. Both natural and synthetics are not the best way for learning because they does not allow a close contact between the teacher and the student.If the student does not understand something, the narration is not going to clarify his doubt. According to me, the face-to-face narrated presentation is the best as it allows all what are not possible with the other types of narration.Hence,I am against the fact that synthetic audio narration is the tool for educational technology in the future.
ReplyDeleteHi Ravi, i complete agree with your speech. It is clear that whether it is natural or synthetic voice narration, the problem remain the same-there is no inter-communication in such presentation and the mind is easily diverted.The best is face-to-face narrated presentation.
ReplyDeleteThe use of synthetic voice should be a last resource from the tutor as the warmth of a natural voice or a familiar voice has more impact on the learner than monotonous synthesized voice. Nevertheless, the material is received as it should be by the learner because the main purpose is to learn the topic irrespective of the method. For small groups, it would be better to have a voice-narration along the presentation with a known tutor and for webinars and other place where anonymity is at play, synthesized material is good enough.
ReplyDeleteI strongly think that students do prefer a PowerPoint presentation together with a face to face narration with the lecturer rather a voice audio narration. This ensures that the class is interactive and students are definitely more focused on the topic. Furthermore with a face to face presentation with the lecturer, the lectures are not restricted to slides only, students are able to interact with the lecturer, who in turns can provide a clearer explanation and comes up with new far more new examples. However, audio voice can be very useful especially for revision at home. As one get to review the lectures notes as well as hear the lecturer voice. It’s as if we get to have 2 lectures in one day. This may help student to memorize things more easily.
ReplyDeleteFrom my point of view, these new types of teaching methods are becoming more and more popular. However, there effectiveness are frequently questioned. But, i see the natural voice-audio narration method better than the synthetic voice-audio narration method because the natural voice is more powerful given that it contains high and low pitches whereas the synthetic one consists of only a flat tone. Furthermore, the multimedia PowerPoint presentation with the face to face narration with the lecturer will be even more efficient as the movements of the lecturer can show more emphasis on certain aspects of the learning session.
ReplyDeleteReply to Shakeela 30 Oct 2011 14:00
ReplyDeleteHi Shakeela, i do not completely agree with you when you state that there is no difference between synthetic voice narration and natural voice narration. In fact there is a big difference, natural voice narration have more variation in the pitches and tones and thus is more powerful for explanation purposes whereas synthetic voice narration has a flat tone and thus cannot put much emphasis on certain things.
Investigation of student understanding and learning in multimedia presentations using human and synthesized voices based on the ‘voice principle’
ReplyDeleteThis investigation was carried out to know from which learning is gained more-students exposed to synthetic voice audio narration or rather natural voice audio narration. The use of multimedia in the educational field has proved to be beneficial in enabling students to understand and interpret information more easily in some way consuming less time. This study consisted of three main experiments and where their effectiveness was compared based on the criteria such as helpfulness, quality, warmth and familiarity.
Experiments 1 and 2 were designed to compare a synthetic voice-narrated learning resource in Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 against a natural voice-narrated learning resource where the tutor’s voice was recorded in the PowerPoint itself. Last experiment 3 was to investigate learning gains and qualitative factors in live presentation.
The statistics obtained show that there was no significant difference between these two in learning gains. Regarding the quality of audio-narration, results suggested that natural voice narration and face-to-face narration were believed to be of higher quality than synthetic voice narration. But it cannot be denied that all learning resources were infact helpful, students showed preference for face-to-face narration with a PowerPoint presentation by the lecturer followed by the narrated Power Points whilst PowerPoint presentation only was the least supported. The conclusion is that this study shows that synthetic voice audio-narrated resources could be a useful and helpful tool in educational field near in the future.Above all synthetic voice audio-narrated PowerPoint presentations do not only enhance understanding but also can help us to improve our pronunciations.
reply to 17 oct 11:23(NUZIE)
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you,However, there are some limitations of this way of learning, for example, compare to face-to-face presentation, students won’t be able to ask questions if they have not understand.Compare to face-to-face presentations, some students would hesitate to ask the lecturer to re explain something that they did not understand. I can conclude that synthetic voice audio-narrated PowerPoint presentations do not only enhance understanding but also can help us to improve our pronunciations.
Reply to SHAKEELA 30 oct 14:00
ReplyDeleteI am against what you have commented.You have said that the no differences between synthetic voice narration and natural voice narration but you are completely wrong.Face to face narration presentation in presence of a tutor is more interactive and students would be eager to participate by asking questions or would tell the lecturer to re explain if they have not understand the concept and content of the topic.However voice narrated learning resources could be helpful at home for self revision and could be tuned forward or backward or even paused to view the slides properly.
Multimedia and educational technologies are becoming popular nowadays in schools and new means are always put forward in order to improve them. These means are for example synthesized voices that could eventually replace human voices. However, after some test have been done, their results shown that the learning gain of the students after having had classes with a human voice and a synthesized voice were nearly the same and also, the students preferred face to face interaction.
ReplyDeleteReply to Aurelie 28 octobre 2011 10:34
ReplyDeleteAccording to me, Aurelie's comment is excellent in that natural voice narration is better than synthetic voice audio narration in that there is two-way traffic communication between students and lecturer as compared to the other one where there can be technical problems and it is time consuming
Both synthetic and human voice can be of great use. However, synthetic voice can become quite boring over a certain time compared to human voice, as it lakes the natural intonation and warmth that is present in human voice. Practically, synthesized voice could be of great assistance in many cases. It can aid handicapped persons in their learning process.
ReplyDeleteFace-to-face narration is the best of all as it emulates a real life scenario and therefore makes it better for students to appreciate all what is being expressed in the narration.