A free educational software to help children improve reading, writing and basic maths skills.
On this page:
1) A word about SpeakingBuddy!
3) Terms and conditions of use
1) A word about SpeakingBuddy!
The SpeakingBuddy! software is a project I developed primarily for my wife, who is a special needs teacher. I was often trying to find a way to apply my programming knowledge in some sort of software that could help with her work at school, so I thought "... why not develop something that could entertain the children and at the same time helping them to learn? ...".
I hadn't (and still don't have) any knowledge on the education area, and had no idea of where to start, so she helped me a lot with ideas of what would be useful for her and the children, and for this reason, the SpeakingBuddy! software was entirely inspired and dedicated to her.
The original idea was to make a kind of an amusing text editor, where the children could write stories and have funny characters reading the stories back to them. I had some experience with Text-To-Speech before, so that was my first bet, and in a couple of weeks I had something ready to go, back in January, 2007.
But I still needed more. I thought "... well, if I were a child, I would find this really boring after a while ...". I needed something that could draw their attention to the "practise and learn" stuff and making boring tasks become fun.
That's exactly where the Microsoft® Agent and its animated characters came in handy. Bingo! That was my way to go, and I have to say that although I never found these characters very useful before, now I see they are responsible for most of the fun on the SpeakingBuddy! software.
When I finished the first beta version and presented it to her, I had no intention to distribute it, because I wanted it to be something restricted to her classroom only.
But the result was so good that she suggested me that it could be nice if other children in other classrooms could have the SpeakingBuddy! on their computers.
I didn't want to go through all the trouble of distributing software, even because SpeakingBuddy! uses third-party components and this involves copyright matters in which I didn't want to get into.
Selling it would be too restrictive, and I have to admit that even though the SpeakingBuddy! is a nice piece of software, it is not something I could classify as a "commercial" product.
Also, it was developed having the children in mind, and I would feel as if I were taking advantage of them by selling it.
So after several months, in December/2007, I decided to launch this website and distribute SpeakingBuddy! for free instead, for non-commercial purposes.
Hope everyone enjoys using SpeakingBuddy!, as much as I enjoyed developing it.
Thank you very much,
Clemente W. B. Silva
2) Copyright notices
1) The SpeakingBuddy! software is ©2007 Clemente Wilson Borges da Silva, licensed under a Creative Commons license.
2) The SpeakingBuddy! software uses Microsoft® Agent technology and its animated characters: Peedy, Genie, Robby and Merlin, which ones are all © 1996-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. For further information about licensing Microsoft® Agent and its animated characters, please refer to the Microsoft® Agent End-User License Agreement document.
3) Terms and conditions of use
1) The SpeakingBuddy! software was developed and fully tested on Windows XP and Windows Vista, and is intended for use on computers running these same versions.
2) The SpeakingBuddy! software is free, and it is being distributed 'as is', without any kind of technical support and/or warranty.
I have done my best to provide the safest use and experience for children, however, the SpeakingBuddy! software (as well as any other product from any other company) is subject to possible failures and other issues.
Being so, I accept no liability for any kind of problem, loss or damage that the SpeakingBuddy! software (or unauthorized, altered versions of it) may cause, under any circumstance. This same condition applies to the Microsoft® Agent files and animated characters, and/or any other third-party component used by the SpeakingBuddy! software, which are the responsibility of their respective owners.
3) The download, installation and the use of this software means the acceptance of the above terms.
If you do not accept these terms, please do NOT download, install or use the SpeakingBuddy! software.
Otherwise, you may proceed to the Downloads page.