Voki & VoiceThread

Welcome to the Voki & Voicethread entry!!

 


These two websites were useful, but I can´t come up with an idea of how to implement it meaningfully.
Voki allows you to create a kind of icon or cartoon that speaks and tells whatever you put it to say, you can choose if you want a female or male voice, and you can also choose the accent.
My Voki, was a Welcome Voki, for putting in a webpage or in a presentation to make it more interesting.

Check this:
http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=10372456&height=267&width=200

<object height="267" width="200" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,28,0" id="widget_name"><param name="movie" value="http://vhss-d.oddcast.com/vhss_editors/voki_player.swf?doc=http://vhss-d.oddcast.com/php/vhss_editors/getvoki/chsm=128e5d8e7f895a516b0c5babed4d42bf%26sc=10372456" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="width" value="200" /><param name="height" value="267" /><param name="allowNetworking" value="all"/><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed height="267" width="200" src="http://vhss-d.oddcast.com/vhss_editors/voki_player.swf?doc=http%3A%2F%2Fvhss-d.oddcast.com%2Fphp%2Fvhss_editors%2Fgetvoki%2Fchsm=128e5d8e7f895a516b0c5babed4d42bf%26sc=10372456" quality="high" allowScriptAccess="always" allowNetworking="all" wmode="transparent" allowFullScreen="true" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" name="widget_name"></object>

Then, Voicethread was more useful because you can create and promote blogs and posting comments with this page. It is really good because you can add text, voice, or even video with is great!!! The writing, and the speaking skills are involved. Also the students can socialize with these threads that are created here. It was kind of difficult for me to understand how to use it but then it was incredibly fun and interesting. It can be used for blogs, or presentation, instead of using the common and normal Power Point or Prezi.

Here is my Voicethread, you can take a loot in this link:
https://voicethread.com/new/share/6114665/

From these two websites, I´d rather use Voicethread.

Storyjumper & Zooburst

During the course, we have been using and exploring different websites that might be useful in the future as teachers. These two websites are for applying the writing skill of students. They are creative and enhancing. Students will definitely have fun with them.

Storyjumper is very similar to Storybird, but here you can change the sizes of the pictures, and you can actually upload YOUR OWN PICTURES; isn´t it great?

Students from elementary and high school will love to share stories through this tool because they can individualize them as much as they want. If they like rock, they can add rock-related things, if they like fairytales, they can upload tiaras and crowns, etc.
It is a good way to let the students be active and decide how to implement the technology. You, as teacher, can give the guidelines, such as "X" minimum pages, these topics are not allowed: ....., or you must write about "X", but after that, students can be creative and they can show their awesomeness.
I actually did a story, check it out:http://www.storyjumper.com/book/index/16438762

Then, we also used Zooburst. It is kind of nice but the quality of pictures and pop-ups isn´t.

It is more adequate for Preschoolers or from 1st to 3rd grade. Small kids will like it, but for sure teen agers or more grown-up kids won´t.
I did my own 3D story, check it here:

http://www.zooburst.com/book/zb01_541a323fa17a2

Storybird

The first week of the course we studied this very useful, and nice tool, Storybird.

The website is: http://www.storybird.com/ You can read as many public stories as you can, but you have to register to be able to write a "longform book"which is multi-chapter, a "picture book" that is multi-page, or a "poem" that is only for a single image.

I prefer this tool for the written assignments because it is user-friendly, eventhough it doesn´t let you to upload your own pictures. You have to use the ones that are already there. It is easy to explain how to use it, and easier to use it by yourself. Feel free to explore this tool!!

First, I actually created my own story here: http://storybird.com/books/ramdomland/ Then I explored all the website to get to know it better. After that, I implemented this one with my friend, who is learning English in a Language Institute, but they are focused on the oral or spoken part of the language. I asked him to use this and write a story about whatever he wanted. He had some grammar mistakes, and his punctuation failed a little, too.

This link will take you to his story:
http://storybird.com/chapters/charlies-trip/

I explained him how to deal with the most important features, and how the stories are supposed to be done in this website.

I felt happy with the final product because he did it very well and he actually asked me for more help after that.