Help! We just can't stop adding cool new features! By popular demand, the new desktop version 2.5 adds a new feature for multilingual learners: instant translations. There are also improvements to narration of special characters in math and science formulae.
Instant Translations
The new translation tool in Speak Agent enables students and teachers to instantly translate all directions and content into any of 109 languages supported by Google. This tool is accessible in all Speak Agent activities at teach.speakagent.com (web version).
Please see this Knowledge Base article for important details about how students may access and use the new feature. Teachers may use it, too, when previewing any activity.
Improved Narration
Text-to-speech (TTS) narration has a few flaws when it comes to narrating the special characters used in mathematical and chemical formulae. We have made our TTS smarter when it comes to superscripts, subscripts, operators, fractions, and various symbols. If you still hear a glitch in how we narrate a formula, please email support@speakagent.com and let us know specifically where you heard it. We now have the tools to rapidly address any mistakes!
Safari Bug Solved
We fixed a bug in the Primary (grades K-4) version that caused endless loading of the To Do page for some users of the Safari web browser.
Assignments Bug Solved
We fixed a bug that some teachers experienced when trying to assign lessons to a class from the Class page (in the Assign Lessons popup). Keyword searching should now work properly and assign the lesson immediately when you press Done. This was patched with the minor release 2.5.1.
What's Next?
Our new Android app is pending review for publishing to Google Play. Look out for a post in the near future on this topic!
We are also working on solving the overlapping audio streams that can occur in the Word Gallery and Vocab Lab activities if a student repeatedly presses the audio buttons.
As always, please contact us with your ideas on how we can make Speak Agent better for you and your students.
Written by Katie Cunningham
Katie is CTO and Co-Founder of Speak Agent, Inc. A leading expert in the Python programming language, Katie designed the Speak Agent architecture and wrote the very first line of code for the current platform. She is an accomplished technical author and keynote speaker worldwide, as well as a leader of the Washington DC chapter of PyLadies, an organization dedicated to training women in Python.
