The new Speak Agent version 1.3.8 includes many long-awaited goodies. Here are the highlights:
- Speeds up performance and game load times.
- Saves progress in the Scrambled Sentences game across sessions.
- Encourages replay of games where more practice is needed. In the screenshot shown at right, for example, the Picture Pairs game ends with an explanation of how many right answers a student achieved versus a goal. During play, the colored dots show which answers were right on the first try (indicated by green dots).
- Improves corrective feedback in the game Tall Tales. A student can press "Check Answers" after all blanks are filled to see specific messages and/or listen to the story read aloud with text-to-speech.
- Offers a new search feature when adding a Tall Tales game to a lesson. Using this, teachers and authors can browse or keyword search our growing library of tales.
- Introduces a new Read-Aloud activity type. This presents students with custom text entered by a teacher or author, along with text-to-speech audio support.
- Enables teachers to archive assignments (retains student progress data) or un-assign them (removes any and all data). Use un-assign when a lesson is assigned by accident, whereas use archive to move old lessons off a student's To Do list.
This summer we are redesigning the Primary student dashboard and navigation. Stay tuned for more changes coming in August!
As always, if you have a brilliant idea or something that's bugging you about Speak Agent, we are listening! Just contact us.
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.
