I’ve posted quite a few times about various web tools that allow students to type in words or sentences and then have the computer “verbalize” them. You can find the best of these sites at The Best Reference Websites For English Language Learners — 2008. They’re excellent applications for English Language Learners to help develop pronunciation skills.
Now, here’s the weirdest text-to-speech site ever — Talk To The Plant.
Heinz Ketchup is sponsoring this site that is supposed to determine if talking to a tomato plant will make it grow larger.
On the site you see a picture of two plants (one is a “control” plant). You type in a “message of love” to the non-control one and both you and that plant hear it spoken. You can see for yourself if these “messages of love” have made a difference.
Of course, it could also be a rather unusual way to either introduce or reinforce some of the methodologies of scientific experimentation.
Larry, Happy New Year!
I love anything TTS but really am disappointed with the voice and the delay. Seeing this is a commercially sponsored site, you think they’d afford quality voices??? Wouldn’t this effect the experiment and the plant’s response 🙂
I prefer our own Dave bot. No typing needed, just select a question or response and keep the conversation going….
http://eflclassroom.com/bot.html
It would be interesting to create one which grew the MORE you talked to it. A kind of animation. Maybe I’ll make that a future project!
David