Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
by Dr. Seuss
“You’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So… get on your way!”
Don’t forget to submit your favorite poem as told by Voki! Every Friday, we will post your submissions to our blog! To submit your Voki Poet, send the complete embed code along with the poem title and author’s name to feedback@voki.com.
How doth the little crocodile…
a poem by Lewis Carroll
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!
Don’t forget to submit your favorite poem as told by Voki! Every Friday, we will post your submissions to our blog! To submit your Voki Poet, send the complete embed code along with the poem title and author’s name to feedback@voki.com.
Voki Classroom is constantly improving thanks to your feedback! In this update, we would like to introduce the newest Voki Classroom features. Starting this week, teachers will be able to add a writing assignment to their Voki assignments, set Assignment deadlines, show/hide student names in the Assignment Pages, and give students feedback. Status types have also been updated in both the teacher and student accounts. Read below for more information!
Student View of New Voki Classroom Features
We hope you continue to enjoy Voki Classroom and that your experience is enhanced by these improvements.. As always, we want Voki Classroom to be a tool that is useful for teachers and engaging for students.
If you have any suggestions, please feel free to click the FEEDBACK tab in Voki Classroom, or email us at feedback@voki.com. Your opinions and suggestions go a long way!
Until next time,
The Voki Team
Embedding Voki with the publishing presets is easy! Showcase your Voki on Facebook, Friendster, Twitter and more with just a few clicks.
Step One: After you have created your Voki, added text or voice, and have it ready to go, click Publish Your Voki.
Step Two: Select the size in which you would like to display your Voki. We recommend choosing large for the full Voki effect!
Step Three: Choose the platform where you would like to post your Voki. If you do not see a quick option for a particular site or blog, grab the embed code below. Once you click the code, it is automatically copied and ready to paste on your website.
Some sites, such as WordPress, require a bit of massaging to embed your Voki on the page. For WordPress instructions, please check out our past Voki Tip of the Week, How to Embed Voki on WordPress.
We hope you have fun creating your Vokis and sharing them with your students, teachers, and friends! If you have any questions or issues with embedding, please let us know in the comments section or by sending us an e-mail to feedback@voki.com.
Sincerely,
The Voki Team
Voki is a useful tool that makes lessons interactive, educational, and fun.We love seeing how teachers around the world incorporate Voki into their classroom activities. Voki isn’t only a great supplement to lessons, it can also serve as a cute message bearer that recognizes student achievements, good work, or birthdays! Just imagine a student’s delight upon receiving a Voki in their e-mail on their birthday that delivers a special and personalized message.
Below are a few examples of how Voki can help you give your students a virtual pat on the back.
Have a great week!
The Voki Team
If you are a Voki Classroom user, you have probably already noticed the changes we implemented to make student logins much easier. Along with a simpler default username, Voki Classroom now allows you to edit your students’ login information as you or your school district deem most appropriate.
The new student logins are comprised of the student’s first name initial, last name, and 3 randomly generated numbers. If you do not want your students’ last names to appear or you would like to change any aspect of the username, go to your student roster and click the name in blue to edit.
Once you click the blue username, the ‘Change Student Login’ box will appear.
The rest is up to you! Once you enter the new login, click ‘Change’ and you are finished!
We hope you are pleased with this update. We are always eager to hear your your suggestions for Voki as we continue to improve your experience.
Should you have any questions, please leave a comment below and we will be happy to answer you, or email us at feedback@voki.com.
Until Next Time,
The Voki Team
Are you looking to get the most human-like Voki voice possible? Why not try recording your own voice on your Voki? Recording your voice on Voki is fun and adds the dimension of hearing your (or a student’s) actual voice. Whether it will be used to practice public speaking, foreign language pronunciation, or to add a dramatic effect to an assignment, voice recording is an easy-to-use tool that can prove to be very useful for Voki lessons.
In our latest “Interview with Educators“, music teacher Lyndell Allen used a Voki voice recording to help create a fun, interactive environment in her music classes.
We have many lesson plans in the Voki Lesson Plan Database that make use of recorded voices, especially in public speaking, ESL, foreign language and arts classes. The ways of using Voki voice recordings are endless!
In order to get the most out of your voice recording experience, it is important to be prepared with the right tools. There are two ways you can record your voice. One option is to use a computer microphone (either internal or external), and the other is to use a phone. Below, we take you through the steps for using a microphone to record your voice on Voki. Get your microphones ready and your voices warmed up!
Voki Voice Recording with a Microphone
You will need:
1. A computer
2. A microphone that works with your computer
Steps:
1. If your computer does not have a built in microphone, plug in your external microphone to the computer.
2. Test to make sure the microphone is properly connected to your computer:
a. Go to My Computer
b. Click on Control Panel
c. Choose Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices
d. Click Sounds and Audio Devices
e. Click the Voice tab
f. Under Voice Recording, click Test Hardware
If you have trouble setting up your microphone, ask your IT administrator.
3. Once your microphone is properly connected, you are set to use Voki voice recording.
4. Go to http://www.voki.com and log in or go to the Create section.
5. Design your Voki as you wish.
6. Under the Give it a Voice section, click the microphone icon.
7. Choose “Allow” on the screen that pops up asking for Voki permission to access your microphone.
a. Starting with the first tab:
i. Make sure the box by “Enable Hardware Acceleration” is checked.
ii. “Allow” vhss-d.oddcast.com to access your camera and microphone.
iii. The local storage tab is set at default and should not be changed.
iv. Slide the record volume to max and check the box next to reduce echo.
8. Close the pop-up.
9. Prepare what you want to say and press Record.
10. When you have finished recording, press Stop.
11. Once you are happy with your recording, press Save and Name your audio file.
You will have 60 seconds to record your voice using Voki and 90 seconds with Voki Classroom. Don’t worry if you or your students don’t get it the first time. You can always try again until you are happy with you recording!
Tip: Your saved recordings are available by clicking the Folder icon under Give it a Voice.
Go ahead and try out Voki using a microphone to record your voice! If you have any great lesson ideas that use the voice recording function, please share it with us below in a comment or email to feedback@voki.com.
Until Next Time,
The Voki Team
As you know, we love receiving feedback and ideas from Voki users! Your feedback helps us learn what we are doing right, and how we can make Voki even more useful.
A great suggestion we have received from many teachers using Voki Classroom is to simplify the student login names. Teachers mentioned that the current student logins are rather long, and that students have a hard time remembering them. As you mentioned, students would have an easier time remembering a shorter, simplier login.
So, we have worked hard to implement a solution to this. We are simplifying student logins!
Below are examples of the current student login formats.
The new and improved Student logins will be comprised of: First initial only + Last name + 3 digits – That’s all! This will make for even shorter and easier-to-remember Student logins. This is an example of the new student login format:
Much Better!
Additionally, teachers will be able to easily modify a student’s login name by simply clicking on it. Clicking on the blue login will open a small window where you may edit the student’s login. This is an example of the editing window:
Important! If you currently have a Voki Classroom account:
Everyone affected will receive an email notification, as well as another reminder the day before the change.
You will also see an alert in your Voki Classroom account, which will be dismiss-able after the change takes place. The alert looks something like this (it’s hard to miss):
Technically, there’s nothing you need to do, since the change will happen automatically. However, you should provide your students with their new logins once the change occurs.
Tip: If you are unable to tell your students about the change, we’ll do it for you. When students log in using their old logins, they will see an alert. This alert will provide their new login and ask them to use it from now on.
Note: Student passwords are not affected, unless you decide to change them.
We hope that the new student logins makes logging in to Voki Classroom a much simpler process for your students!
Should you have any questions, please leave a comment below and we will be happy to answer you, or email us at feedback@voki.com.
Thanks for the great feedback – keep it coming!
The Voki Team
Have you ever made a Voki that you wanted to share with specific people (like a teacher, a student, parent, or a friend)? Do you have their e-mail address? If you answered “yes” to both questions, you are in luck!
You can easily email a Voki to anyone using the Voki “Send to a Friend” option. Follow these simple steps and you will be able to correspond with people à la Voki.
1. Once you have saved your Voki, click the “Send to a Friend” button (under the Voki preview).
2. Enter the email to which you want to send the Voki and hit “Enter.” You can repeat this step to add up to 5 email addresses.
Tip: Make sure to enter an email Subject and a message.
3. Click “Send.”
Once your message has been sent, the recipient should receive your Voki immediately. The email that they receive will look like this:
Tip: To make sure you or your recipients receive Voki messages, ask them to add notifications@voki.com to their safe senders list.
When the email is opened, the recipient will be able to view your Voki and will also have the option to reply back with another Voki or forward it to someone else. They will also have the option of saving the Voki to their account.
Tip: Since you can save an emailed Voki to your account, this is also a way to Copy a Voki (just email it to yourself!)!
Have fun using Voki and sharing with your friends! We hope this clears up any confusion you may have had about how to send Voki through e-mail. If you have any questions about this process, leave a comment below and we will be happy to answer you!
Until Next Time,
The Voki Team
Question: I noticed the nifty avatar on your blog. How do I make Voki appear as a widget on the sidebar of my WordPress blog??
Answer: There are a few ways to do it. In this post, we’re going to walk you through one of the easier ways. Below, we show you the easiest way to make your Voki widget work without using a third-party. You’re only minutes away from having a Voki greeting on your WP homepage, ready to greet your readers!
Using Voki’s Embed Code
1. Open a Word document or other text editor.
2. Log in to Voki and WordPress.
3. In WordPress, go to the “Appearance” tab, and select the “Widgets” option.
4. Look at your widget options. Choose the “Text” widget and drag it to the sidebar display of your choice.
5. Now, in My Voki, select your Voki of choice, and click “Publish your Voki.”
6. Copy the entire embed code.
7. Paste the code in your open Word document.
Okay! Good job, we have made it this far. Let’s pat ourselves on the back and take a couple of breaths before we move forward. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale…
Almost there! Now for the finishing touches…
8. In the Word doc, highlight the source code, or “src” code. This can be found by locating src= and highlighting the hyperlink that is in between the quotation marks (it’s a pretty long link, so make sure you copy everything in between the quotation marks). See the example below.
9. To make sure you copied the link correctly, paste the highlighted link into your internet browser (but not this window or tab!) and press Enter. Your Voki should appear on the page in full screen (pretty cool!).
11. Copy and Paste your new embed code from the Word doc, into the WordPress Text box (and click Save).
12. Check out your blog! Your Voki should be happy to greet you!
TIP: If you don’t see the Voki, and you’re certain you followed the steps correctly, try clearing your browser’s cookies and cache, and reopening the page.
For those of you with WordPress blogs, we hope this helps you out! If you know of an (even) easier way to make Voki work with WordPress, please share it with us below in a comment!
And, if you have any ideas for future Voki Tip of the Week posts, feel free to share them below, and we’ll add them to the list!
Until next time,
The Voki Team
Have you seen Voki Classroom?
Check out the new Voki classroom management system, and the intro video, right here.
The Voki Blog - Expanding Education 