Guests Amelia Kelly, CTO of Soapbox Labs and an innovator in voice technology, and Kristen Huff, Head of Measurement at Curriculum Associates with a wealth of experience in K-12 assessments, dive into the transformative potential of voice AI for literacy. They discuss how speech recognition can identify reading challenges early and personalize feedback for students. The conversation highlights practical implementation, addressing noisy classrooms, and the importance of building teacher trust in AI assessments while navigating ethical considerations.
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question_answer ANECDOTE
SoapBox Labs Transforms Assessments
Amelia described how teachers used to spend hours manually assessing students' oral reading fluency with pen and paper.
The SoapBox Labs algorithm automates this, freeing teachers to focus on insights rather than admin tasks.
insights INSIGHT
Voice AI Enables Nuanced Literacy Feedback
Kristen highlighted Voice AI's promise to provide authentic, nuanced literacy feedback beyond mere efficiency.
She emphasized AI's potential for detailed, timely feedback on foundational skills like phonological awareness and fluency.
insights INSIGHT
Oral Fluency Vs Diagnostic Detail
Owen noted oral reading fluency is a useful proxy for reading ability but lacks diagnostic detail.
More granular measures like phonemic awareness can inform specific instructional needs better.
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Voice AI is having a moment in education. As schools grapple with declining literacy scores and stretched teaching resources, voice-enabled tools have the potential to help. But what's already working in real classrooms, and what challenges remain?
In this episode, Libby and Owen speak with Kristen Huff from Curriculum Associates and Amelia Kelly from SoapBox Labs about the emerging field of voice AI for literacy support and assessment. Together they explore how automatic speech recognition technology helps teachers identify reading challenges earlier, provide more frequent assessments, and give students personalized feedback on their oral reading.
They discuss the practical realities of developing and implementing voice AI in education, from navigating noisy classroom environments to building teacher trust in AI-generated assessments.
Kristen Huff, MEd, EdD, currently serves as the Head of Measurement at Curriculum Associates, where she works with a team of assessment designers, psychometricians, and researchers in the development of online assessments integrated with personalized learning and teacher-led instruction. Kristen has deep expertise in k-12 large scale assessment, and has presented and published consistently in educational measurement conferences and publications for over 25 years.
Amelia Kelly, PhD, is an AI engineer and pioneer in voice technology with more than 15 years of experience in speech recognition and natural language understanding. She is a Fulbright Scholar and Eisenhower Fellow, holding a PhD and master’s in linguistics and speech technology. Amelia currently serves as chief technology officer of SoapBox Labs and vice president of data science at Curriculum Associates, where she leads the development of child-specific speech-recognition technologies.
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