Research Papers - Dept of Information Technology

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    CodeJr: Comprehensive Programming Application for Children
    (IEEE, 2022-12-09) Muthuthanthirige, M.D.C. J; Illangasinghe, U.P; Illangasinghe, D.N; Halgaswatta, I.; Samarakoon, U; Amarasena, N
    Since the beginning of the millennium, computer technology has been the key area of concern and developing essential programming knowledge and intellectual skills from the young age have proven that they will gain more success in their careers. The ideology behind this research is, the problem with absence of a complete multi-disciplinary and interactive programming application for children between the age of 10 - 15 years, to learn programming concepts with a well-established text-based programming language. There are 4 major approaches in this research. Gamification approach focuses on expressing knowledge about Python programming via a game while concentrating on low perfumers. Collaborative approach aims to deliver a brand-new experience for children by aggregating cooperative methodologies and Artificial Intelligence with learning to enforce mutual learning. This component is based on collaborative sessions which allow a group of students with similar interest to join to learn python programming. Drag-drop approach enables children to learn Python language through videos and will be given basic practice questions after finishing the course. Story telling approach guides children to learn programming concepts step by step using story telling. Focused on storytelling approach and interactivity via voice conversation to learn programming language for children.
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    Adapting MaryTTS for Synthesizing Sinhalese Speech to Communicate with Children
    (IEEE, 2021-12-01) Lakmal, M. A. J. A; Methmini, K. A. D. G; Rupasinghe, D. M. H. M; Hettiarachchi, D. I; Piyawardana, V; Senarathna, M; Reyal, S; Pulasinghe, K
    The majority of the Sri Lankan population speak Sinhala, which is also the country's mother tongue. Sinhala is a difficult language to learn by children aged between 1–6 years when compared to other languages. Text to speech system is popular among children who have difficulties with reading, especially those who struggle with decoding. By presenting the words auditorily, the child can focus on the meaning of words instead of spending all their brainpower trying to sound out the words. In Sri Lanka, however, computer systems based on the Sinhala language especially for children are extremely rare. In this situation having a Sinhala text-to-speech technology for communicating with children is a helpful option. Intelligibility should be considered deeply in this system because this is specific for children. Recordings of a native Sinhalese speaker were used to synthesize a natural-sounding voice, rather than a robotic voice. This paper proposes an approach of implementing a Sinhalese text-to-speech system for communicating with children using unit selection and HMM -based mechanisms in the MaryTTS framework. Although a work in progress, the intermediate findings have been presented.