FSU Center to Test Speech Recognition Tech for Literacy Assessments

  • By Sara Friedman
  • 11/05/19

Florida State University (FSU) is working with SoapBox Labs to test how the company's speech recognition technology could help educators assess student reading and language skills. The new partnership will further the work of FSU's Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR).

FCRR is piloting SoapBox Labs’ technology with assessments of 1,000 students in kindergarten through second grade across Florida, Oregon, Atlanta and South Carolina. Both parties are working together "to develop next-generation literacy assessments," according to Yaacov Petscher, an associate director at FCRR and associate professor at FSU.

"Speech recognition holds immense potential to better identify a child's likelihood for literacy success, and to reduce the risk of bias for dual language learns or children who speak with a dialect variation," said Petscher. "An immersive, reliable and efficient assessment system like this can hopefully revolutionize the way we think about assessing children."

More information about FCRR’s work can be found here.

About the Author

Sara Friedman is a reporter/producer for Campus Technology, THE Journal and STEAM Universe covering education policy and a wide range of other public-sector IT topics.

Friedman is a graduate of Ithaca College, where she studied journalism, politics and international communications.

Friedman can be contacted at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @SaraEFriedman.

Click here for previous articles by Friedman.


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