Tip of the Week – Viewing Voki in Full Screen

Tip of the Week – Viewing Voki in Full Screen

by Ashley Chaney ♥ 1 Comment

Can you make a Voki scene appear in FULL SCREEN?

Yes, you can!

If you’ve ever wanted to view a Voki in full-screen mode, there is a really neat trick we’d like to share with you. This can be useful for presentations, for those who are visually impaired, and just as a cool trick that you can teach others.

Follow the steps below to make your Voki full screen!

Note: The code may look overwhelming but if you follow these steps, playing your Voki in full screen will be a breeze.

  1. In My Voki, click on the Voki you want to display.
  2. Click the ‘Publish’ button.
  3. Copy the embed code and Paste into any word processing document.
Now, here’s the fun challenge… You need to be a little bit of a sleuth and pick out the right part of the code:
Tip: This is a great student exercise in attention to detail.
  1. A few lines from the bottom of the code, you should see a URL  (http://) in quotes
  2. Copy the URL beginning with: http://vhss-d.oddcast.com/vhss_editors/voki_player.swf?doc= (do not include the quotation marks) and ending with a number before the word “quality”
  3. Paste the URL into your browser and click Go
That’s it! If you copied the URL correctly, your Voki will now load in Full Screen mode.
Here is an example. You want to copy the highlighted part.

Voila!

Now, you’ll have the biggest Voki of them all!

What do you think? Share your comments below and we’ll be sure to respond.

Until next time,

The Voki Team

Rediscovering America: Columbus Day Lesson Plans

Rediscovering America: Columbus Day Lesson Plans

by Ashley Chaney ♥ 3 Comments

The ways in which we have celebrated Columbus Day have varied greatly throughout American history. Some use this day to honor Italian-American immigrant ancestors and others observe the achievements that have been made in America since it became a place on the map. On the other hand, many people don’t think about anything at all! Today’s Columbus Day celebrations, like the man himself and the stories that followed his ‘discoveries’, are wide-ranging.

Although we can’t tell you what to do or think (or celebrate) on Columbus Day, we are here to help you plan your class with ease! So, let’s make this Columbus Day a day of rediscovery. With a fresh new batch of lesson plans, we aim to break down some myths that surround American history and rediscover these same histories with a different and more inquisitive lens, using Voki of course!

Below are the Voki Columbus Day Lesson Plans, which are now live in the Voki Lesson Plan Database!

(Remember – the grade assigned to each lesson plan is our best guess – you can use Voki lesson plans from a higher, or lower, grade than the one you teach – if you think they fit!)

  1. Who was Christopher Columbus? (5th grade): Columbus and his voyages are investigated using primary sources and critical thinking.
  2. Discovering America (4th grade): Who did the Europeans encounter when they landed in America?
  3. Deconstructing the American Revolution (7th grade): Students learn about the policies that led to the American Revolution and analyse their effects on a society on the brink of chaos.
  4. America: Before and After the Industrial Revolution (10th grade): Students learn about how American industry became more efficient and modernized after an industrial invention boom.

Rethinking what are often considered to be facts is a great exercise for students. By questioning history, students will discover for themselves that this subject is one that has been passed down from human to human through many different perspectives. By combining primary sources with critical thinking, these lessons bring history to life and show students that various stories make up each historical event or period.

Along with helping students analyze the murkier parts of history, the lessons will help students discover new ‘facts’ for themselves, which is a valuable tool for developing thought processes and is essentially related to Christopher Columbus!

Each lesson contains the intended grade level and subject(s), the time recommended for completion, resources needed, as well as a list of objectives and activities. The lessons are easy to follow and can be adapted according to your own personal teaching style.

As always, we are interested in hearing about how you have used Voki in class. If you have a lesson plan that uses Voki and you would like to share, please email us at lessonplans@voki.com.

Happy Columbus Day and have fun rediscovering America!

New in Voki Classroom: 2 New Tabs!

New in Voki Classroom: 2 New Tabs!

by Voki Blog ♥ 4 Comments

If you use Voki Classroom, you are probably accustomed to the three main sections:

  1. Students: Add and manage up to 100 students.
  2. Classes: Add and manage up to 5 classes and multiple Assignments per Class.
  3. Review: View, Approve, and Share your students’ Voki assignments.
Based on feedback from users, we have just introduced two new tabs, and a side tab!
  • Support: The Contact Support link located in the top right of the page has been replaced by a complete Support tab, making it more visible for Voki Classroom users. Really – you can’t miss it!

  • My Account: To make the Voki Classroom pages even cleaner looking, and to give you more control over your account, we have added a My Account tab on the far right. Here, you can view (and edit) your account settings most conveniently (see it below). Here’s what you can do in My Account:
    • Personal Information: Here, you can add a salutation, edit your name, and add a picture. This is the information your students see when logging in, and what shows up on each Assignment Page, unless you marked it as Private.
    • Personal Settings: Here, you can edit your Teacher ID, your account email address, and your account password.
    • Account Settings: Here, you can view your account expiration date (and renew), your account ID, and how long you’ve been a (valued) Voki Classroom user.

Voki Classroom - My Account

  • Feedback: Since we value your opinion so greatly (!), we’ve also introduced a Feedback tab to the far right of the page. Here, you can provide more general feedback (ideas, issues, praise, questions), which we will use to improve Voki Classroom. Clicking the “Feedback” side tab (on the right side of the page) will launch the feedback widget:
Voki Classroom - Feedback tab
That’s all for now. More enhancements will follow, as we get more of your feedback. So go ahead, tell us what you would love to see in Voki Classroom!
Until next time,
The Voki Team
New in Voki Classroom: Teacher IDs

New in Voki Classroom: Teacher IDs

by Voki Blog ♥ 4 Comments

We recently introduced a small-but-nifty new feature, based on feedback from Voki Classroom users.

Each student login that is created by Voki Classroom is based on a student’s name and the teacher’s email address. So, a student login might look like this: First.Last:teacher@longteacheremail.com.

The issue(s): Many teachers use their personal email address for their Voki account, and they are not eager for this to appear in the student login. Also, using the full teacher email means that student logins could get quite loooooong.

The solution – Teacher IDs: To overcome these issues, we implemented the Teacher ID feature. If defined by you (the teacher), the Teacher ID will replace your email address in student logins. Clearly, a Teacher ID can shorten and simplify student logins, while also removing your email address from their logins.

The Teacher ID can include any combination of letters, numbers, and the underscore character, but it must be unique (like you!). Since Voki Classroom is only about 1 month old, most of the cool Teacher ID’s are still available. So, if you set your Teacher ID to, say, “Mrs.Farmer”, your student logins will look like this: First.Last:Mrs.Farmer. Much shorter and easier to remember!

UPDATE: Here’s how to set up your Teacher ID:

  1. Log in to Voki Classroom and click on the My Account tab.
  2. Under Personal Settings, next to Teacher ID, click Edit.
  3. Enter a unique Teacher ID and click Save. That’s it!
FYI:
  • To learn more about the Teacher ID, click the (?) symbol next to “Teacher ID”
  • Remember: Once you create/ edit a Teacher ID, your students’ logins will also be updated – make sure you provide them with the updated login info.

Let us know what you think about Teacher IDs!

 

 

 

Next time, we’ll introduce you to two (and a half) New sections in Voki Classroom.

Until then,

The Voki Team
http://www.Voki.com

Lesson Plan Preview – Conjugation Practice with Voki

Lesson Plan Preview – Conjugation Practice with Voki

by Ashley Chaney ♥ 5 Comments

Learning a second language can be tough for all ages. Making grammar practice fun can be just plain difficult. Here at Voki, we have been working on creating lesson plans that can bring seemingly mundane subjects to life and make learning fun!

One lesson in particular is focused on making grammar and conjugation more engaging – more than just written repetition and paperwork. By using Voki to practice conjugation and sentence structure, students will get the chance to interact with language through sight and sound.

The lesson plan “Conjugation and Sentence Practice with Voki” calls for students to choose a verb, conjugate in the tense being studied, and create a Voki. Following the conjugations, students type an example sentence. The Voki can then pronounce their conjugations and example sentence in the language being studied and in the preferred dialect. Once students feel comfortable with the pronunciation and conjugations of a verb, they can record their own voice for the Voki.

If the teacher uses Voki Classroom, a webpage is automatically created for the lesson. If the lesson is conducted using Voki (and not Voki Classroom), the teacher can use a class blog or webpage to display the Vokis. By creating a webpage, teachers and students have access to an online audio-visual database of verbs that are fully conjugated and pronounced correctly. The webpage can serve as reference and extra practice for the class.

“Conjugation and Sentence Practice with Voki” is one of many new lesson plans that we have added to the Voki Lesson Plan Database. As always, Voki lesson plans are free for all to peruse and use. Happy conjugating!

The Voki Team

New Lesson Plans for the New School Year

New Lesson Plans for the New School Year

by Ashley Chaney ♥ 2 Comments

School has already begun and we are sure you have a lot on your to-do list. Here at Voki, we are working hard to help you prepare for the new school year on the technology front! We have added many new lesson plans that do not take long to complete, and don’t require much prep time. These are great for re-introducing your students to Voki and to your subject (in case they forgot anything over the summer…it happens).

The new lesson plans cover a variety of topics and span from kindergarten to 12th grade. Below are several examples of new lesson plans, now available in Voki’s Lesson Plan Database:

  • Discovering Your Intelligence: Students create a Voki to elaborate and speak about their favorite hobby.
  • Classroom Topic of the Week: Students follow a current event and create a Voki presentation. Perfect for Social Studies!
  • The Meaning of a Poem: Students analyze a poem by using their intuition and personal opinions. This allows them to feel more engaged with poetry and more confident with literary analysis.
  • Guess Who with Voki: A fun game of guess who? with historical figures will keep students entertained and informed.
  • Elicited Opinions of History: Students form concise arguments based off of their opinions of the current topic or debate in class.

Each lesson contains the intended grade level and subject(s), the time recommended for completion, resources needed, as well as a list of objectives and activities. Each lesson is easy to follow and can be adapted according to your own personal teaching style.

Remember, Voki lesson plans are completely free – and are our way of thanking you for using Voki for education.

As always, we are interested in hearing about the Voki lessons you have used in class. If you have a lesson plan that uses Voki and you would like to share, please email us at lessonplans@voki.com.

Happy teaching!

The Voki Team

Technology: It exists. Make it come alive!

Technology: It exists. Make it come alive!

by Ashley Chaney ♥ 3 Comments

At its most basic level, technology is the advancement of knowledge through the use of new tools, trades, and methods. This in mind, we can say that technology is not, and has never been, a new concept to society, or to school districts. Here’s a short video to illustrate the point:

Before we had ball point pens, we had fountain pens and before we had wood based paper, we had the costly and elusive rag-based paper made from textiles and linens. Today, we have paper, pens, desktops, laptops, smart phones, touch pads and much more. It is now time we maximize each item’s potential as our predecessors did when paper was no longer an item of the elite, but could be used by everyone.

The speed at which new educational tools are introduced is staggering, and it can be overwhelming for educators to think about maintaining an up-to-date classroom on top of everything else. For this reason, we have created Voki Classroom. Serving as a platform for teachers to manage all of their students’ Voki assignments, Voki Classroom makes integrating technology and education a breeze. To make things even easier, we have also been adding lesson plans created with Voki Classroom in mind. We’ll continue adding new lessons, for both Voki and Voki Classroom, throughout the year.

Keeping up with the technological Joneses may seem daunting but Voki Classroom, along with other online tools, exists to make the transition very smooth. If you are interested in Voki Classroom, you can get all the info – such as features, pricing, and so on – at www.voki.com.

Also, check out these links below for technology tips for teachers:

Ten Tips by Jose Picardo

Ronn Waters, Technology Proponent

Until next time!

The Voki Team

The Voki Back-to-the-Classroom Giveaway

The Voki Back-to-the-Classroom Giveaway

by Voki Blog ♥ 1 Comment

It’s a fact: summer is almost behind us, and a new school-year is starting. There’s no use denying it, so you might as well celebrate it! We’d like to help. In fact, we have a few things to celebrate.

To help celebrate the new school-year, the launch of Voki Classroom, and because we love teachers, we’ve decided to give away a whole bunch of Official Voki T-Shirts! These things are amazing! (You can see them modeled below)

Anyone can win a Voki t-shirt, and we are giving away plenty. You can wear them when teaching with Voki, or give yours away to a lucky student (or save yours in the hopes of one day auctioning it to the highest bidder…)!

How to win an Official Voki T-Shirt:

Here’s how to enter yourself in the daily drawing –
(Check out “How it Works” below, before entering.)

  1. Like Voki’s Facebook Page (if you don’t already)
  2. Follow @OfficialVoki on Twitter (if you don’t already)
  3. Tweet about why you love Voki, or how you use Voki in the classroom (add #VokiTee4Me).

Important: Make sure to include #VokiTee4Me at the end of your tweet so we can find it!

Tip: Getting your followers to re-tweet you increases your chance of winning…

Which Official Voki T-Shirt will you choose?

We have 4 types (as modeled by our very own Ashley):

How it works:

After every weekday (M-F), from Monday, September 5th to Friday, September 16th, 2011, we will randomly draw three (3) winners who have completed the 3 steps above during that day. If you are selected (and if you have completed the 3 steps), you win!

More Tips: Every day is a new day, meaning you can send out a different tweet each day and you’ll be in the running for that day’s selection. You can also send out more than one tweet per day, as long as each tweet is different. To be fair, each person can win only one (1) Voki T-Shirt.

If and when your name is selected, we will contact you via Twitter (via @ mention or DM). We’ll ask you to email us your info and we’ll send you an Official Voki T-Shirt! We’ll even pay the shipping!

Good luck to everyone and here’s to a great start to the new school-year!

The Voki Team

Interviews with Educators | Mrs. Menezez

Interviews with Educators | Mrs. Menezez

by Ashley Chaney ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Ana Maria Menezez is an English teacher in Brazil and uses Voki to inspire her students to speak up and learn a foreign language in an engaging atmosphere. Ana was kind enough to share with us some examples of how she uses Voki in the classroom along with some of her own tips and tricks.

Ana uses Voki to motivate students to practice speaking in a personalized way and also creates her own Voki to improve interaction between teacher and student. One of the most important things about Voki for Ana is its ability to help the quieter students speak up and have a voice in class.

For more of Ana’s tips, tricks, and Voki experiences, check out the interview below!

Check out Ana’s blog: Life Feast

Follow Ana on Twitter: @anamariacult

Want to be interviewed for the Voki blog?
Send us an email at submit@voki.com and we’ll get in touch!

Voki Classroom Intro Video

Voki Classroom Intro Video

by Voki Blog ♥ 6 Comments

Hi Everyone!

We are about to launch Voki Classroom. Before we do, we thought we’d share the official intro video.

UPDATE: Voki Classroom is now Live!
Check out the official press release here:  http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/8/prweb8716302.htm

This short video is an overview of the main features of Voki Classroom. Let us know what you think!


The Voki Team