Here’s my 2 cents. Well, for me, mostly an audio narration complementary to the content on-screen does the trick. I use asynchronous narrations for L3 modules like simulations.

When I see someone say “Auditory or Visual Learners,” I hope you mean that your students seem to prefer one methodology over another and not to suggest that different people can only learn with one learning style. This belief in learning styles was debunked many years ago, and unfortunately, the concept of learning styles has been perpetuated.

Human narration is always the best choice, but it should be left to the professionals. I came from a corporate background, and I’m reminded of an incident where we asked volunteers from the organization to come into the recording studio and record the narration for an important course we launched. Because of the difficulties one volunteer had reading the script and sounding authentic, an hour of recording became half a dozen, and we blew the recording budget on this one person’s lines.

Another consideration organizations often make to hire voice actors to provide the voices is what happens if employees leave or are terminated. Do you want a former employee to represent the company in their official training courses? Could there be legal ramifications if you continue to use those recordings? Possibly. I think hiring a voice actor who can get the job right the first time and maintain their anonymous nature is better.

I use WellSaid labs when a client doesn’t have the budget for proper narration. While I can record a middle-aged-sounding male English voice, you can’t use the same voice for all if you have developed scenario-based training with multiple characters. Also, one of the nice things about voice synthesis is that the voices never get sick, tired, or unavailable. Check out this video I prepared on Wellsaid labs. If you are interested in trying them out, I have a link in the video’s description where you can let them know I sent you: https://youtu.be/zLGzhghUilc

That is a pity! You only need a good microphon. I have several but even a good headset (like my Plantronics C720 M) is fine. I record my voice often with the headset, especially for a Video Demo where the first draft audio needs to be done while capturing the screen.

I was a professor in a university college here in Belgium. When I started to add audio to my tutorials, I observed that most of them listened and didn’t really read much anymore. That was the reason for my comment about the synchronisation between text on slide and the audio. Sorry, but I don’t believe that much in difference between auditory and visual learners, combination is best for both but ‘text’ is not what I mean by ‘visual’.

Personally I rarely use machine voice (TTS) myself, only for drafts. Human voices, even if not professional, are always better.

Another personal preference: What is on the slide itself should not be duplicated in the audio? If you need a literal transcription of the audio use Closed Captioning. What is on the screen is very important but you can keep to core words, images, if you have a more extensive audio explaining.