Education needs -Talking stories on iPhone and iPad with Pictello

Pictello is a nice and easy application developed by AssistiveWare to share fun and content.

Teachers, parents and kids can use it to create talking picture books and develop literacy and narrative skills. Kids with special needs can use it to communicate, teachers and parents to facilitate comprehension or develop learning supports.

Pictello is a simple way to create talking books, photo albums, tutorials on iPhone and iPad. To create a page, add an image, up to five lines of text, plus audio content, and play the story! The audio part can be either a recorded voice or a text vocalized by Acapela natural text to speech voices.

Share comments and memories with a photo album, present something you like, develop a quick tutorial to help the kids using visual and audio support, tell your own story with pictures and dialogue using Acapela’s repertoire of natural voices, etc. The possibilities are endless!

Pictello has been developed for all ages and skill levels and does not require reading skills to locate and read stories. It offers an easy visual story creation wizard so anyone can use pictures and sound to share important moments in their lives. An advanced editor gives full control of the editing capabilities.

Acapela text to speech empowers Pictello with a wide range of voice persona to bring any story imaginable to life. It perfectly converts any text into pleasant speech for a pleasing audio result. North American English male and female voices are included, and up to 50 voices and 21 languages and dialects available as free downloads! Pictello does not require an active Internet connection for story creation or playback.

The current version of Pictello is localized in English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch and Turkish.
Stories can be shared using iTunes File Sharing or via WiFi with other Pictello users through a free account on the Pictello Sharing Server.

Available on the Apple appstore, Price: $18.99 – Universal app for iPhone and iPad

See feedback from users on the Pictello facebook page 

and introduction video:

Uses for Pictello stories include:

• Stories to teach social skills or to recall events
• Photo albums to allow non-speaking people to share their news and interests
• Sharing important events and memories with family who live far away
• Talking books
• Teaching narrative skills as part of a literacy or language skills curriculum
• Schedules, task instructions, etc.
• Sharing stories or writing group stories using iPad on a VGA monitor or interactive white board (VGA adapter required)
• Creating multilingual stories using text to speech or voice recordings

More information on AssistiveWare website