Monday, November 10, 2014

Using Talking Pictures

Howdy!
I ran across a post from A Turn to Learn: How to Make Any Picture "Talk!"  using the application Blabberize. I thought her directions were terrifically simple and it got me thinking as to how I might incorporate this into my instruction. I already show a YouTube video when students are learning about animal niches (Reginald the Red Wolf). It cracks the class up and I have been known to play it randomly just because we need a good laugh. From a teacher perspective I was always curious as to how this video was created. Well, now I know!
So back to thinking about using this application in classroom instruction...
As the teacher I could use this...
  1. To reinforce a simple content related concept
  2. To give directions to complete a task
Students could also use this application to explain what they know about...
  1. The rules of a sport by being a sportscaster and calling out the plays of a game
  2. Proper pronunciation of a foreign language
  3. The societal impact of a piece of music or art
  4. Following mathematical procedures in solving a problem
  5. Identifying the main idea with contextual evidence in a longer reading passage
  6. The influence of a certain individual or group during a particular time in history
  7. The results of a scientific investigation and begin to construct explanations for what was observed
And just so you know...the application does require you to have an account in order to save your work (at least that's what worked for me). If you're thinking you might want to use this with the students in your classroom, you will have to determine if it'll work best for each student to make their own account or if you are just going to have them record on your device with your account.
So let me know how it goes if you choose to use this.

I'm also curious to know what other applications might be like this that you've used before. I know of Voki...are there others that are classroom friendly?

How have you used this or similar tools in your own instruction? How would you rate the effectiveness?

Thanks for reading!
Be OutStanding!
-bethany

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