Recognizing CAL Tutor’s innovative spelling software and text-to-speech technology, the ICE conference committee accepted a session abstract submitted by Ryan Chomko, the creator of CAL Tutor for Spelling, Spell Bowl, and Spelling Bee. The session was entitled, Student Uses PC to Turn Text into Speech. At the 2004 ICE Conference, an updated session was presented entitled Student Uses PC to Turn Text into Speech II.
The following comments were made by ICE attendees:
I thought your presentation at the ICE conference on Friday was spectacular. As a former Spell Bowl coach, the issues my students would always struggle with were the pronunciation of words as well as how to individually drill them on their troublesome words. The Spell Bowl Tutor hits right at the heart of these issues. If the Crown Point Spell Bowl teams implements the use of this program by all their team members, I would fully expect to see Crown Point taking home a State Title in the years to come! As a coach of 2 state championship Spell Bowl teams, I would have loved to have had a program like this. It would have eased the workload for me. I cannot even begin to estimate the number of hours I spent developing practice tests and hand grading them! And, I also cannot estimate the number of words on those practice tests with questionable pronunciations by me! This program alleviates most of these issues!
-- High School Spell Bowl Coach (1998-2002)
Again, I have to say that your son is an amazing kid. I was so impressed with his professional demeanor and his speaking ability. You should be very proud. In regard to the software he created, I really feel that this type of interactive software could revolutionize the way vocabulary, and spelling itself will be taught in the classroom. The way the program categorizes and analyzes each student's performance is remarkable. It is as good as any educational software I've seen on the market, perhaps better. I expect that we will be seeing a lot more of Mr. Chomko in the future.
-- High School Teacher
Ryan, I loved your Spell Bowl Tutor program. I teach an intermediate multi-age class (grades 4 and 5), and I could really use this program for the student's individualized spelling lists and tests. Since the students do have their own spelling words, they could take their test whenever they felt they were ready, not necessarily on Fridays. The program would keep track of their problem words. I could easily keep track of their scores as well as their lists--all on one computer or in a file on our server. Your program is unique and very much needed in the regular spelling curriculum or for those studying for a spelling bee or for the Spell Bowl. Thank you so much for writing the program. Please market it very soon!
-- Elementary School Teacher
I was so excited to hear about the development of "Spell Bowl Tutor". This is a product that will be of great value to spell bowl teams as well as the regular classroom. Please let us know as soon as it is available.
I was so impressed with Ryan and his software at the ICE conference. I spoke to you at length about using this program with learning disabled students. I would like to invite you to speak to my Technology Team. I’ll contact the committee and see what dates are available.
-- Junior High Teacher
* Indiana Computer Educators is a non-profit professional group whose mission is assisting educators to enhance learning through the use of technology.
Today, ICE has over 2,500 members who are K-12 educators, administrators, or higher education professionals. The ICE conference has become Indiana's premier educational technology conference for K-12 teachers, administrators, and school technology leaders and is the fifth largest conference of it's kind in the nation.
www.iceconference.com