Voki - quick voice msgs for your learners

Hello Everybody,

 

 

I'm re-visiting a very nice tool which can be used in the classroom in a number of ways to share voice messages by adding an extra personal and creative touch through an avatar of your own creation. I've just started the first CertICT course of 2013 and as an Assistant Tutor on this one, I'm adding this one here as an example to introduce week 2 of the course. 

Of course there are lots of ways to help your learners work on and develop their linguistic skills.  They can record the intended msg by either typing it up, uploading their own voice recording, etc. And for you as a teacher it would also be a nice way of giving feedback just to mention one possibility!

 

Here's a link to the site and as an educator you have special deals and features too! Voki

Enjoy!

 

Robert

 

Snagit? Yes, you must have it!

Hello and Happy New Year!

I want to start my blogging in 2013 with an awesome application which is not free BUT if you're in education you can get a huge discount and believe me, it's worth buying it. I'm in TESOL  (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and teacher training and as an educator I love integrating technology into my teaching to enhance motivation, engagement and add variety to the lessons. I also like to prepare my own materials and in doing so I've been using Jing (also by Techsmith) for years. It's an excellent free tool to manipulate images and short videos. I've also used EzVid which is totally free but it's a little limiting as you need to record your screen and then add the audio so you can't record a screencast in one go, at least I couldn't - and beileve me I tried and watched the tutorials on Youtube. There are other similar free image editors on the web and they're ok, but if you really need the extra features to add that extra professional touch to them, then you need to buy one.

Anyways, I've been creating more and more Podcasts, Vodcasts and Screencasts lately and so I decided to go ahead and try Snagit since I already know Jing which is produced by them too. I'm still in my trial period (30 days) but I'll buy it as soon as it expires as there are lots of things you can do with it to manipulate images, text and video. The new version Snagit 11 is also great and there are plenty of resources and tutorials available so they've made it easy for you.  I also like the fact that they suppport education and that their tools can really make a difference in today's classroom.  Anyways, here's the link to the site and enjoy! Snagit

 

Robert