ALMA MATER STUDIORUM UNIVERSITA’ DI BOLOGNA University of Bologna Net4Voice – New technologies for Voice-converting in barrier-free learning environments Net4Voice – New technologies for Voice-converting in barrier-free learning environments Bologna, 23rd October 2008

Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna © ▪ Materiale riservato e strettamente confidenziale 2 Net4Voice – New technologies for Voice-converting in barrier-free learning environments Summary  The project  Aims, objectives and expected outcomes  Description of beneficiaries (medium/short and long term groups)  Main activities  Activities in detail  Unibo experiment results  Partners

Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna © ▪ Materiale riservato e strettamente confidenziale 3 Net4Voice – New technologies for Voice-converting in barrier-free learning environments The project  Traditional face to face (F2F) education is the most pervasive way to support learning but…  Physical, temporal and cultural barriers reduce the accessibility and the effectiveness of learning Net4Voice consists in testing voice recognition techniques and methods within learning contexts. ICT based learning methodology:  can be complementary to traditional F2F classroom learning, to make education more effective;  enables to overcome constraints and barriers in learning processes; Speech recognition technology in Net4Voice:  is a means to support teaching/learning processes;  enables students to have an additional learning support during and after lessons;  provide a more flexible, accessible, innovative and comprehensive learning environments

Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna © ▪ Materiale riservato e strettamente confidenziale 4 Net4Voice – New technologies for Voice-converting in barrier-free learning environments Aims and objectives Final aim  To increase quality and learning opportunities by promoting the adoption of barrier free learning environments and the dissemination of innovative learning methodologies. Concrete aims  To develop a new learning methodology that experiments and evaluates the impact of SR technologies in at least three educational settings: School, Higher and Adult Education;  To focus on different target user needs: people with disabilities, second languages learners,...  To evaluate the scalability of the SR based learning methodology and to define a strategy for transferring to other EU countries;  To raise awareness and deep knowledge about the impact of SR technologies in different educational settings.

Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna © ▪ Materiale riservato e strettamente confidenziale 5 Net4Voice – New technologies for Voice-converting in barrier-free learning environments Expected outcomes Short term expected outcomes:  To experience SR technology in a wide range of subjects, testing all the opportunities offered by this technology and the adoption of multi-channel learning methodologies;  to produce a tested and validated learning methodology that can be shared with other educational Institutions in order to create a stable and broader network; Medium/long term expected outcomes:  To support the development and dissemination of innovative and well-balanced ICT educational tools and the design of new standardised pedagogical documentation for the lifelong learning in a European educational setting.lifelong learning in a European educational setting

Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna © ▪ Materiale riservato e strettamente confidenziale 6 Net4Voice – New technologies for Voice-converting in barrier-free learning environments Description of beneficiaries Short term target groups:  Students with learning and physical disabilities who are unable to take notes by their own and need for an intermediary support;  Second language learners;  Students of various educational settings;  Teachers/Professors; Medium/long term target groups:  Other educational institutions than the partners and their networks;  Traditional stakeholders of the educational community (i.e. student families, the local community and government);  The national and international bodies that deal with education (i.e. ministries, agencies, DG Education of the EU).

Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna © ▪ Materiale riservato e strettamente confidenziale 7 Net4Voice – New technologies for Voice-converting in barrier-free learning environments Main activities Net4Voice main activities:  Developing a joint speech-recognition technology based learning methodology, to increase the accessibility and the effectiveness of learning at all of its stages  Training professors of the educational settings identified by partners on the developed methodology  Testing the speech-recognition technology based methodology within the educational settings identified by partners  Sharing and validating the results of the experimentation  Evaluating the scalability of the testing results and planning dissemination and exploitation activities  Disseminating project results.

Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna © ▪ Materiale riservato e strettamente confidenziale 8 Net4Voice – New technologies for Voice-converting in barrier-free learning environments Activities in detail Creation of the project web site Identification of one or more professors who will be in charge of contributing to the learning methodology Recruiting of professors who will test the methodology in the identified educational settings Delivering of a document identified as the partner contribution to the learning methodology and developing of the joint learning methodology Identification of the most appropriate software for the experimentation goals Transfer of know how related to the defined methodology and to technologies Identification of tutors who will help teachers in training of the software and in correction of mistakes Decision of training of the software timetable (before or during the lessons), according to teachers availabilities Beginning of the experimentation in classes: testing of the new learning methodology in various educational settings Developing of questionnaires to be delivered to professors and students at the end of the experimentation Delivering of questionnaires after the experimentation in order to evaluate the impact on students Design of the qualitative evaluation methods of the methodology impact on the different educational settings Evaluation of the methodology impact on the different educational settings Sharing of experiences concerning evaluation, methodology refinement and adaptation in order to completely satisfy the various educational setting requirements.

Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna © ▪ Materiale riservato e strettamente confidenziale 9 Net4Voice – New technologies for Voice-converting in barrier-free learning environments Unibo experiment results Accuracy results Speech transcription has been edited after each lecture to update the speech profile of the speaker. The accuracy has been shown to be strongly dependent on:  the kind of speaker It has been noticed how slow speaking and well articulated words can significantly influence the quality of results.  influence of the environment One of the main external factors which is expected to influence the accuracy of the process is represented by the situation of the room where the lesson takes place. An experiment was set up to evaluate the influence of background noise, by obtaining some registrations in a small room without people with minimal environmental noise. First results shows that the improvement in speech recognition by the software can be quite evidently improved.

Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna © ▪ Materiale riservato e strettamente confidenziale 10 Net4Voice – New technologies for Voice-converting in barrier-free learning environments Unibo experiment results Number of recorded lessons6 Number of recorded lesson hours11,92 Number of corrected hours3,35 % corrected hours over the total28% Initial accuracy (% correct words)40,91% Final accuracy (% correct words)80,05% Improvement of accuracy95,67% Student’s viewpoints Student are not real user during this trial. In any case the reaction was extremely positive and they showed interest also in the possibility to use the speech transcription as lecture notes. This product can be useful also in the case, as at present, where the speech recognition is around 80%. It can help as a quite complete complement to student’s notes. RESULTS Analysis of quantitative results obtained from the first experimentation realized with two teachers Number of recorded lessons2 Number of recorded lesson hours2,2 Number of corrected hours0,81 % corrected hours over the total37% Initial accuracy (% correct words)26,13% Final accuracy (% correct words)34,99% Improvement of accuracy33,91%

Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna © ▪ Materiale riservato e strettamente confidenziale 11  Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna, Italy Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna, Italy  University of Southampton, Great BritainUniversity of Southampton, Great Britain  Universität Ulm, GermanyUniversität Ulm, Germany  Istituto Professionale di Stato per i Servizi Sociali "Iris Versari", ItalyIstituto Professionale di Stato per i Servizi Sociali "Iris Versari", Italy  Totton College, Great BritainTotton College, Great Britain Net4Voice – New technologies for Voice-converting in barrier-free learning environments Partners

Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna © ▪ Materiale riservato e strettamente confidenziale 12 Università di Bologna New technologies for Voice-converting in barrier-free learning environments Thank you Raffaella Primiani University of Bologna – Net4Voice web site