Storyline and ReadSpeaker

Sep 17, 2018

Hello,

We have developed several online courses in which we have integrated animations of the Storyline 360.

Our online courses are in the BrightSpace platform (D2L).

Last week, our client activated the ReadSpeaker tool. Since, this tool tries to read mp3. and mp4. that are in our published Storyline.

The client does not want to disable the ReadSpeaker tool because students need it. Now, our animations do not work anymore. We have more than 200.

Has this happened to another person? If yes, is there a html code that can be integrated to stop the problem?

As you can see in attachment, the content disappears when the tool is activated.

Thank you!

20 Replies
Leslie McKerchie

Hello Stéphanie and welcome to E-Learning Heroes :)

Thanks for reaching out and sharing what you are experiencing in your course.

I'm not familiar with ReadSpeaker, but I've seen it used to read web pages.

As far as a screen reader goes, Storyline supports JAWS screen readers with Google Chrome. You can read all about building an accessible course here.

Hopefully, someone with some experience using this product will be able to chime in to help you out.

Jennifer Stein

I think this is the same issue I'm experiencing. Our College has also just implemented ReadSpeaker and now all of the many Storyline products I've developed (that were working) are in the constant spin mode!

Is there any solution short of turning off ReadSpeaker which won't happen in my environment

Jennifer Stein

Hi Leslie,

Yes, our College uses Brightspace / D2L to deliver online components of courses.

WARNING I might have the below explaination wrong but this is my current understanding...

I think I’ve tracked down the issue! ReadSpeaker was implemented on our LMS over the summer and with RS their TextAid add on. I guess this product runs java on all the pages it encounters and this causes the issue. Apparently this is true for SCORM packages and RS has a fix though not sure if the applies to the TextAid product we are in discovery mode at this point. BUT turning off ReadSpeaker and TextAid on our test server and then importing the SCORM Storyline product solved the issue. Thank goodness.

i want to thank you and others at Articulate for the wonderful and timely support dealing with this issue. I would rate it as EXCELLENT!

Jennifer Stein

Oh, I would guess other institutions are using Readspeaker... it’s a big accessibility tool because it reads out webpages, PDFs, and other docs. D2L has (I believe) an LTI integration with Readspeaker but I would be very surprised if Blackboard and Moodle (the other major LMSs used in education in Canada) don’t have something as well. Accessibility is such a big part/ issue now for educational institutions and it is so much more accessible than JAWS because it is web-based and doesn’t require any client side software. Readspeaker is an add on product though, independent from the LMS D2L.

Thank you so much again for your help navigating this issue. I’ll update the community post if I find out any more or if what I’ve written is incorrect (don’t want to contribute to fake news :)).

Jen

Dave Strobl

I too am interested in hearing if there has been any progress. I am developing for a college here in Ontario Canada and since the implementation of RS, all my Storyline content is essentially unusable. I am also wondering if this behavior is specific to Storyline 3 as a colleague has developed assets in SL2 and that content appears to be working as expected.

Paul Stisser

ReadSpeaker is working with BrightSpace by D2L and they will be updating the integration and the order that ReadSpeaker and SCORM content is loaded into D2L Content.  This release is scheduled for Late Summer/Early Fall. 

 Has anyone that has a ReadSpeaker account in D2L tried to embed the RS script into the Storyline template?  ReadSpeaker offers similar integration with other content authoring tools that can embed our speech engines.    And in doing so, ReadSpeaker can designate the "Storyline player" as the default player when both are live/active in D2L.  This could be a workaround until the September new release.  

Paul Stisser

Please reach out to support@readspeaker.com.
They will be able to address the issue. Either update the script or
preserve the code launch. Also, what is the default SCORM player that you
are utilizing? Is it the recommended version from D2L?

ReadSpeaker is always open to further implementation and discussions with
StoryLine.

Paul Stisser
Education Director, ReadSpeaker
M: 904-615-0282
E: paul.stisser@readspeaker.com
W: www.readspeaker.com

Stéphanie DeGrâce

Hi Paul!

In the D2L platform, I usually use SCORM 2004 and it works better. I have had problems when I used SCORM 1.2.

When the interface and fonts are not displayed as they should, I have to clear my browser history. It happened a lot when I published the same animation more than once.

Once I cleared my history, the animation is working well.