Microsoft announces general availability of Immersive Reader for remote learners

As colleges nationwide gear up for the brand new faculty 12 months, Microsoft has introduced the overall availability of Immersive Reader, an Azure Cognitive Service on the Azure AI platform.

Immersive Reader has turn out to be a important software for distance studying all through the coronavirus pandemic. Based on Microsoft, greater than 23 million folks use Immersive Reader each month. Between February and Might of this 12 months, there was a 560% improve in Immersive Reader utilization. With the brand new faculty 12 months already right here for some and on the horizon for others, Microsoft expects to see continued momentum for the remote-learning software.

With the overall availability of Immersive Reader, Microsoft has up to date it to help pre-translating content material and routinely studying a web page aloud. Microsoft is including 15 new Neural Textual content-to-Speech voices and 5 new languages to Immersive Reader too, together with Odia, Kurdish (Northern), Kurdish (Central), Pashto and Dari.

To make content material extra simply accessible to learners, Microsoft has partnered with Code.org and SAFARI Montage to combine Immersive Reader into every respective platform. 

For Giovanni Benincasa, UX supervisor of the division of curriculum, instruction and digital studying for Chicago Public Faculties (CPS), Immersive Reader has turn out to be essential to supporting CPS college students and households.

“Throughout distant studying, notably for our youthful learners, scholar studying is commonly supported by mother and father, guardians, or different caregivers,” mentioned Benincasa.

“Since Immersive Reader can be utilized to translate the student-facing directions in our digital curriculum, households can help scholar studying in over 80 languages, making digital studying way more equitable and accessible than ever earlier than!” Benincasa added.

To additional interact college students, Microsoft can also be bringing audiobooks to life by fine-tuning audio traits like voice type, price, pitch and pronunciation to suit their situations. 

Moreover, options like Textual content to Speech and Transcribe in Phrase will routinely transcribe conversations for extra seamless be aware taking.

Immersive Reader was launched in January 2016 and is constructed into Microsoft Phrase, OneNote, Outlook, Microsoft Groups, the Edge Browser and different Microsoft applications. It’s additionally out there as an Azure Cognitive Service and could be built-in into third-party purposes or websites.