Tag: Voki ideas

Voki Teach: An Engaging Way to Teach Common Core

Voki Teach: An Engaging Way to Teach Common Core

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Hello Voki Users!

I am practically bursting at the seams with excitement. Why? You ask.

Well, Voki.com has just released its newest product— drum roll please….

 

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Voki Teach

Voki Teach is a Common Core aligned, ready-to-teach curriculum, designed by teachers for teachers! 

Let’s face it, as a teacher you spend hours on the internet searching for content, followed by hours crafting your lesson plans and worksheets, followed by hours of wondering if your lessons are Common Core aligned. By the time you step in front of your students to teach, you are exhausted and drained.

We wanted to support teachers and provide students with the chance to engage with rigorous content in a positive, engaging, and meaningful way. And so, Voki Teach was born!

 

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Why Students Will Love It

Voki Teach is an academic experience. This experience allows students to interact with characters similar to the ones they admire on TV, but with a slight scholastic twist. In the classroom, the characters act as educators, mentors, and experts, taking students on scientific, literary, and analytical adventures.

 

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Why Teachers Will Love It

Engaging Common Core aligned content in ready -to-teach form is hard to come by. Voki Teach provides teachers with common core aligned lessons crafted by certified teachers. With Voki Teach, teachers will spend more time facilitating learning and less time preparing materials.

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Here’s How We Did It

Our team of teachers, certified in Literacy, ESL, General Education, and Special Education, studied the Core Knowledge curriculum and molded lessons that they believed would benefit their own students. By infusing instructional best practices, they were able to generate lessons that maximize engagement and foster effective teaching.grades lessons

 

Right now, we have two domains available for kindergarten through second grade. Our team of teachers is continuing to craft engaging lesson plans and presentations. Our goal is to provide teachers with a variety of themes and topics to choose from in grades K through 6th.

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There’s even more  good news! For a limited time, Voki Teach is available for free when you purchase Voki Presenter, or if you already have Voki Presenter!  Now is certainly the time to sign up for presenter if you haven’t already!

Click here to see a Voki Teach Lesson!

Let Us Know What You Think!

We would love to get your feedback! Please take some time to check out Voki Teach and please do not hesitate to share some of your suggestions.

Happy Teaching!

Until Next Time,

Heather 

HeatherBio: Heather is the Community Manager at Voki and is part of the Marketing Team at Oddcast.  Before she joined the Voki team, she was a teacher for 7 years!  She has taught in charter, private, and public schools all across NYC. With her teacher hat on, she will create meaningful, engaging, and relevant content that can be implemented in your classrooms.  She is excited to partner with you to engage and educate your students! 

 

Voki Poet: A Poem by Emily Dickinson

Voki Poet: A Poem by Emily Dickinson

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We hope you were able to spend some time this month enjoying poetry in and out of the classroom! Happy National Poetry Month!

Hope is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul 
And sings the tune without the words 
And never stops at all.

by Emily Dickinson

Voki Tip of the Week: Say Something Nice

Voki Tip of the Week: Say Something Nice

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If your students are needing a boost, cheer up the atmosphere by exchanging compliment Vokis! Have your students draw names from a bag. Next, ask them to create a Voki that says something nice about the person they drew. This can be a fun way to lift spirits and start the class on the right foot!

Voki Poet: Warm Summer Sun by Mark Twain

Voki Poet: Warm Summer Sun by Mark Twain

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Warm Summer Sun

by Mark Twain

Warm summer sun,
Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind,
Blow softly here.
Green sod above,
Lie light, lie light.
Good night, dear heart,
Good night, good night. 

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 Tip of the Week: Weekly Lesson Recaps

Voki Tip of the Week: Weekly Lesson Recaps

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Does it ever seem like your students let lessons go in one ear and out the other? Do you find yourself answering the same questions over and over again? Don’t fret! Try a Lesson Recap Voki instead!

At the end of every week, have each of your students make a Voki that describes one thing they learned. Some questions they could answer include:

1.      Who or what was the main topic of the lesson?

2.     Why is the lesson important?

3.     What was the most interesting thing you learned from this lesson?

4.     How is it related to your other lessons or studies?

Check out the Voki below to see this idea put into action!

Voki Poet: Oh, the Place You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss

Voki Poet: Oh, the Place You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss

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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.

Voki Poet: How doth the little crocodile… a poem by Lewis Carroll

Voki Poet: How doth the little crocodile… a poem by Lewis Carroll

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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.

Educators in Texas Work to Improve Student Writing Skills with Voki

Educators in Texas Work to Improve Student Writing Skills with Voki

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Last week, when we came across a video of students using Voki to edit their writing, we had to find out who was behind the great production, interesting lesson, and big smiles found on every student’s face. The search led us to Chase Young, a second grade teacher, and Lynda Swanner, the language arts coordinator for McKinney ISD.  Chase and Lynda are from McKinney, Texas  and have worked together to create interactive and informative environments for students to develop as confident writers. We got in touch with Chase to find out more about how he uses Voki to motivate and improve literacy and he was more than happy to share his and Lynda’s tricks of the trade. Check out the great ideas below!

Conferring with an Avatar

Teachers can use this 21st century method for proofreading when students do not read over, or are unaware of revision or editing needed in their stories. Lynda Swanner and I devised this strategy to motivate students to actively revise and edit their own writing. This strategy helps students discover what they need to revise and edit and also empowers student as writers. They become aware of their own problems in writing, and they can self-regulate the writing process. Students use this self-discovery strategy of revising and editing to privately critique their work before conferring with the teacher. Here are a few brief steps to get you started using this strategy.

1.  Students create an avatar using Voki.com. We suggest limiting the time because students and teachers could spend all day creating the perfect avatar.

2.  Students type a sentence, paragraph, or section of their stories into the Voki text box.

3.  Students listen to the speech and read along several times.

4.  Students make corrections.

Consider the following example. The student noted a lack of punctuation after conferring with an avatar.

Mr. Young:  What changes are you going to make?

Student:  I need more periods.

Mr. Young:  How do you know that?

Student:  …It wasn’t very good, because it went in one fast glob.

This next example shows how a student caught a spelling error from listening to the avatar.

Mr. Young:  What changes did you make?

Student:  I needed to fix some spelling errors.  I needed to spell “grabbed” correctly.

Mr. Young:  How did you know it was spelled wrong?

Student:  It sounded wrong.

Mr. Young:  Do you remember how the avatar said it?

Student:  “grabed” (Student uses a long a sound.)

Mr. Young:  We know that you have to do WHAT to the consonant?

Student:  Double it!

Based upon the avatar’s rendering, students were able to reflect and make changes to their work without teacher direction.

*The full chapter is currently being published by Corwin Press and will available soon in Writing Strategies for All Students in Grades 4-6: Scaffolding Independent Writing Through Differentiated Mini-Lessons.

Chase Young is a second grade teacher in McKinney, TX. He holds a MS Ed with a specialization in literacy. He is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of North Texas. He has written for the Reading Teacher and Education Review, published a book entitled Teaching Texas History through Readers Theatre, and contributed several chapters to educational books.  When he is not teaching, studying, or writing, he is wondering where his free time goes. He enjoys playing the guitar, paintball, racquetball, grilling, concerts, billiards, pools, and golf carts (not to be confused with golfing).

Lynda Swanner has been a teacher, library media specialist, and literacy staff developer. She is currently the English Language Arts and Reading Coordinator in McKinney Independent School District in McKinney, Texas.  She coordinates the curriculum, instruction, and assessments for all elementary teachers in the district.  She is also a literacy consultant for many Texas school districts.  Over the years, she has presented many workshops that integrate technology and literacy for the International Society for Technology in Education.

If you would like to share your tips and tricks on our blog, please email us at submit@voki.com. We always love to hear how Voki is being used to enhance students’ experiences in the classroom!

Voki Tip of the Week: Give your Voki a Human Voice with a Microphone

Voki Tip of the Week: Give your Voki a Human Voice with a Microphone

by Ashley Chaney ♥ 23 Comments

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

The Voki Favorites of 2011

The Voki Favorites of 2011

by Ashley Chaney ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

We are always impressed to see what educators and students can come up with using Voki. The year 2011 was a good one for Voki as was apparent through the emergence of class videos demonstrating Voki in action, well developed instructional videos for newbies, great lesson plans coming from all over the world, and so much more!

We decided to collect our favorite ways of using Voki here for all to see. Please browse through the list to learn more about Voki and how teachers from around the world use it to make class a virtual blast! Hopefully you will be inspired to come up with other ways to make Voki a part of your class. Below is a short list of some of our favorites but believe us, there are so many more out there!

10 Ways you can use Voki:

  1. Improve Confidence
  2. Learn Chinese
  3. Voki Introductions
  4. Interactive Instruction
  5. Break Barriers using Multiple Means of Engagement
  6. Become Digitally Literate
  7. Voki Dictation for Language Class
  8. “Pass it On” Buddy Method
  9. Update Students and Parents on Class Blogs
  10. Make Learning Exciting!

Thanks to all who made this list possible and to everyone that has made Voki a part of their classroom! We look forward to the new year and to hear back from you about the fun and innovative ways you use Voki in your lessons. Who knows? You and your students may find yourselves and your Vokis on our blog!

Happy New Year to all! May your 2012 be filled with happiness, gratitude, and new experiences!