The Benefits of eReaders and ReadSpeakers for Inclusive Education

According to the Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action , opportunities created by innovations in education technology and overcoming the challenges of implementing such innovations are critical to achieving SDG 4. Moreover, technology appears in 6 out of 10 targets mentioned for these sustainability goals. This is because technology impacts education in multiple ways: As a means to create learning materials. Promoting skill development and easing assessment. Facilitating equitable delivery of learning materials. Making tools for education planning readily available. Providing a socio-cultural context to otherwise isolated studies. Consequently, the GEM Report 2023 by UNESCO emphasizes the role of technology in offering accessible, equitable, and inclusive learning opportunities. Among the plethora of tech tools made available by the breakneck speed of edtech evolution, eReaders , and ReadSpeakers are among the most significant for DEI. E-Reader: The Learning Companion Angela Ruiz Robles invented Enciclopedia Mecánica , or the Mechanical Encyclopedia, to prevent her students from carrying a heavy load of books daily. Little did she know that it would serve as the prototype for the electronic version of Rocketbook. The first electronic reader was created by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 1997 and was developed and adopted by Amazon. Today, an eBook reader, or eReader, is a quintessential digital LMS component. It provides seamless learning experiences without students having to borrow or download multiple books. eReaders can be customized to meet individual learner requirements. From the simplest brightness levels or text-size adjustments to individualized skins, the reading experience can be personalized with a well-designed eReader. While convenience and portability have always been a hallmark of eReaders, those designed for educational purposes also facilitate content download. Offline access makes learning more accessible for users with poor internet or device access. Along with reshaping the traditional library experience, eReaders are transforming the reading experience with the help of interactive features. The content is augmented with links and resources for further reading and facilitates annotation for better understanding. Features like bookmarking and highlighting retain the traditional reading experience. ReadSpeaker: The Enabler for Specially Abled Students Text-to-speech (TTS) is a highly impactful implementation of AI and NLP. It supports bimodal learning, stimulating visual and auditory perception. ReadSpeakers leverage this technology to assist learners by reading out the text aloud. While the highest quality TTS uses AI and neural networks to create and contextualize speech dynamically, simpler versions only implement basic forms of TTS. This has opened new possibilities for facilitating continued education for dyslexic and neurodivergent learners. A meta-analysis in 2018 proved that ReadSpeakers enhance comprehension for students with reading disabilities. This instills inclusivity in education, providing equitable learning opportunities. ReadSpeaker implementation can be challenging since the voice and accent must incorporate regional nuances for easy comprehension. While plain text should not sound boring, dialog must be expressed with clear distinctions in voice for satisfactory understanding. Embedding regional and cultural sensitivity in the ReadSpeaker requires the integration of AI for proper pronunciation and voice quality that does not sound “artificial.” Further, the user interface...

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