Listen Spell
From Seeta
Contents |
[edit] Listen and Spell
Listen and Spell is an activity designed for the sugar environment which aims at teaching children English words in a new and an exciting manner.
[edit] Design Goals
The idea was to develop an activity which enables children to learn and revise word spellings, vocabulary and pronunciation, and can give them feedback on the development of their learning skills, overtime using fun and engaging methodologies.
The activity revolves around the concept of constructive learning. It speaks out a randomly selected word of a selected difficulty level and the user has to spell the word correctly. It also pronounces the word entered by the user so that the sounds of the two words can be compared.
[edit] Features
Some of the salient features of the activity are as follows:-
1.Word Database- Extensive database of words, their usage and definitions categorized according to their difficulty levels.
2.Feedback Facility-
a.Framework to provide feedback on your skill-set to spell words correctly.
b.Capabilities to provide both, immediate and overtime feedback.
3.Teacher Friendly- An educator’s tool to conduct spell tests in the classroom and enabling him/her to judge a student’s improvement.
4.User Friendly-
a.“Hint” Feature- The hint consists of word meanings, parts of speech, sample usage etc. All the data has been stored in the dictionary for the easy access.
b.Voice configuration: Feature to edit voice configurations like volume, pitch, rate, language of the words and voice, gender of the voice, etc.
c.“Hint” Level – Feature to select the level of the “Hint” provided.
d.Save Game Option- The game can be saved and replayed from the previous state.
[edit] Technical Aspects
The activity is an extension of the OLPC activity “Talk n Type” which was based on the 1970s toy, Speak&Spell. The purpose of voice synthesis is achieved by using a Speech Dispatcher and the word list is stored in a custom dictionary. The entire technical details of the activity are available on the Technical Specifications page.
[edit] User's Section
In order to give the user’s a better experience and a feel of the activity, a special user’s section has been designed where the users can understand how to play the activity.
[edit] Features and Activities in Progress
1.User defined word list: - This would facilitate users to add their own word list which can help in conducting a small group test. Option to add words through mesh network would help in a large group/class test.
2.Multiplayer game over mesh network: - Users can challenge each other over the network. One XO will then act as a server which would generate the word list for all the clients. All the users would receive same word list with limited retry option for each word after which next word would be given to user. The one who spelled most correct words in limited time wins. Option to speak each letter aloud would be disabled in this case.
3.Memory tool: - A tutor mode in which activity repeats the word again and again until the spelling is absorbed into child's mind.
4.Input Methods: - Input Methods would be exposed externally so that other input methods (Like Handwriting and Speech recognition) could be incorporated.
[edit] File information
- Dict.py – A wrapper class for dictionary
- las.py – Application Logic
- ListenSpell.py – Main class and the GUI class of the aplication
