Note: We have began updating our text-to-speech content to use the same cutting-edge technology that powers the voice assistant in your smartphone. While this requires playing audio files instead of "translating" text to voice on-the-fly, the result is a much more natural sounding voice. This feature is available in some WhiteBox Learning applications and we will be adding it to all over the next few months.
If your browser supports speech synthesis, most content in the Research section of our applications can be read aloud to the student. Currently, browsers that support this feature include Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and updated versions of Microsoft Edge.
When you move the mouse over a paragraph of text that can be read aloud, a gray border will be drawn around the text block and a button with a headphones icon will be displayed in the top right corner. Click the button to read the text. You may want students to use headphones to avoid disrupting others. See the screenshot below for an example:
Certain elements on the page are not able to be spoken aloud, such as math formulas and text within images. In addition, this feature is not available in Specifications pages, Quizzes, or Build and Test pages.
Please note that the pronunciation of words when using this feature is handled directly in the browser - no audio files are transferred from our servers. This allows for fast playback and reduces bandwidth requirements on both your school and our network. This also means we cannot control how a word or sentence is pronounced. If you require more control you may be interested in various browser plugins which add text-to-speech capabilities. We do not recommend any specific plugins but there are many available.
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