Acorn User 4/AUCD4.iso/education/xaviersoft/chatback/Read_Me!

Text File | 1996-07-30 | 6KB | 129 lines

 ©Xavier Educational Software Ltd.  This program may be copied
 providing that all files are included without alteration.



Instructions for the Chatback Demo version.
If possible, print this file first.


This is the Demonstration version of Chatback, a program which will be
of interest to speech therapists and any teachers working with students
with auditory discrimination or pronunciation problems.  The program
allows pupils to listen to an example word recorded by the teacher, record
their own attempt, and compare the two in a process of instant feedback.

The full program requires the use of a printer port sampler such as the
Oak recorder or Sound Byte recorder.  Ideally, this would be used with a
combined headset and microphone unit.  This demo version does not need
a sampler and serves to illustrate the appearance and main functions of the
program.  If you do have a sampler (see notes at the end of this file), then
connect it and load up the sampler software.  When the icon appears on the
icon bar, quit the sampler program - this may seem pointless, but will load
up some software modules required for playing with the facilities in the
Chatback Studio program.

Chatback consists of 4 sub-programs controlled by an application launcher.
Double-click on the !Chatback icon to load this, and click on the icon bar
to show the main panel.

The two main programs Teacher and Practice are shown - to load one, click
on the appropriate icon.  The other two sub programs may be seen by clicking
on the toggle size icon at the top right.

'TEACHER'.
Load this up and the panel will appear.  Drag the directory 'A_Demo' onto
this and the word 'black' will appear at the top, with the waveform of the
recording shown in the 'Teacher' panel.  Click on this to hear the teacher's
recording.  In the full version, clicking on 'Start' would initiate a
sequence where the teacher's voice is heard, the pupil's attempt is recorded,
and the two recordings replayed for comparison.  This may be repeated as
often as desired.  Clicking on 'Compare' would replay the two recordings,
whilst 'Next' would load up the next word in the list.
Clicking on the mouth picture will result in a sequence of pictures of the
mouth shapes for the phonemes making up the word.

A hidden teacher menu allows some options to be chosen:
Hold the CTRL and SHIFT keys down and click the mouse menu button over the
teacher window to see this.  Use the Quit option to remove this prog from
memory.

'PRACTICE'.
Select this from the main application launcher and drag the 'A_Demo'
directory onto the panel that appears.
Clicking on the various buttons will explain their functions.  It is intended
that the pupil uses this program unattended, recording and comparing their
own attempts with self-assessment, and saving their results to disc for
checking by the teacher later.  Use the CTRL/SHIFT menu to find 'Quit'.

'CHECKER'.
On the main application launcher window, click the toggle-size (top-right)
icon to show the Checker and Studio programs.  Click on 'Checker' to load
this simple utility for the teacher to listen to the recordings made by the
pupil using 'Practice'.  Normally, one would drag the pupil's word list
over this panel to listen to these. (Not in this demo version).

'STUDIO'.
Although some word lists are provided with the program on two discs, it is
intended that the teacher uses this program to prepare new material to match
the needs of the pupil, and we have tried to make it as simple as possible.
This demo version has not been altered except that it will not save new work.
If you have an Oak Recorder or similar, plug this in, load up the
software that was provided with it and have a play. If you have not got a
sampler, you can still experiment with the phoneme picker.

The buttons explained:-
Quality - Three optional sample rates to choose from.  Use with care, as
some samplers cannot use the higher rates.

Record - Click on this to record a word - two seconds are allocated.

Playback - Listen to your recording.

Text - The text of the recorded word would be entered here before saving it.

The phoneme picker:-
In preparing new material, teachers may opt to include the phonemes for a
word so that the mouth display in the 'Teacher' program can work, but they
may be omitted.  As you move the mouse pointer around the phoneme symbols,
an example word of that sound will appear in the window below the sample
quality.   You may click with the Adjust button to hear the phoneme
before picking it with the select mouse button.  If you are unfamiliar with
the phonetic symbols, click on the 'Symbols' tick, and these will be
replaced by text equivalents.  The 'Clear' button will clear any phonemes
that you have selected.

As an example, suppose that you had recorded the word 'kipper'.  Click on
the following phonemes:  CK   IH   P   IR  followed by the 'Try' button.

To summarise, preparing a new word is as follows:
Record the word, select the phonemes (if required), type in the text,
drag the file save icon to a directory window.  It's that easy.  Honest!


Notes on Sound Samplers.
This program has been written with the economy printer port samplers in mind
and has been tested with the following:

Oak Recorder from Solent Computer products
Sound Byte Recorder (formerly known as the Printer Port Sampler)
from VTI
!Resound from SEMERC (identical to the VTI device)


The full version of !Chatback costs £32.50 + VAT & p.p. and is available
from:

Xavier Educational Software Ltd
Department of Psychology
University College of Wales
Bangor
Gwynedd   LL57 2DG
phone [phone]
fax  [phone]
email:- [e-mail]
WWW    http://www.psych.bangor.ac.uk/deptpsych/xavier/