Monday

Thing #2 Image Generators 2

Wordle or WordSift, Glogster/edu or VoiceThread, Animoto or Voki, and Bookr

All of the above are tools students can use to create products for assignments. Choose one of each pair plus Bookr to explore. Reflect on the questions asked as you post your blog Thing #2.

Wordle is a tool to create beautiful "word clouds". You copy some text and paste it into the Wordle page after clicking on the "create" button. Be sure to explore the edit tabs at the top to change the layout, color etc. Below is the Library Resources Page in Wordle. In addition to printing, you can always print the screen and then copy into a draw program like PowerPoint for editing and saving. The fact that the words most repeated appear larger would help a student to find the main concepts of an article or essay. How could a student use this tool? or
WordSift, like Wordle, takes text from any document or webpage and creates a word cloud. In addition, it gives you links to websites that might turn up if you did a search on those terms. So, the words become hot links. Again, how might students use this tool in their learning and creating?















Glogster/edu "poster yourself" or a poster online! Glogster is a tool that allows picture manipulation and mashups and adding hot links to parts of the pictures. Scroll down and play some of the tutorials. If you want to create a personal Glogster account before trying a classroom account go to Glogster homepage. Would there be any different thinking a student would have to do to turn in a poster online as opposed to a cardboard poster? If there is different thinking, is it better or worse, more or less, or how is it different?
or
VoiceThread--digital storytelling made simpler with 5 ways for the authentic audience to comment. Click on the K-12 at middle right. Then click on Learn More in middle. Watch Overviews. Then click on "Visit our K-12 pricing page". Then apply for the third or free column. What situations might this be the most appropriate tool for students?

Animoto - surely you have seen an Animoto! If you have not made one, now is the time. Be sure to explore how music with different tempos effect the changing of the pictures. Be sure to notice how the size of your picture effects the quality of the finished product. Be sure to re-arrange the sequence of the pictures to create a different effect. Be sure you can save, send, and post an Animoto. How can students and/or educators use this?
or
Voki - a talking avatar. Click get started. Be sure to click on all the possible buttons to see the various editing features you have. The students love to use the voice spoken typed text. Avatars could be used for other things than just to pretty up your blog. What would happen if a Voki was sent in an e-mail. Might the recipient get a stronger message than just text?

and

Bookr - a tool to create your own photobook. Visit the archives first and get an idea what the possibilities are. Using the cursor, you turn the pages from the top right corner or the bottom right corner. Explore but watch your cursor so you know when things are possible. Students could use Bookr instead of what other tools to create products for what assignments?

7 comments:

  1. I loved exploring all these tools!!!

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  2. These image generators are totally cool. Wish I could figure out how to get my Voki onto my blog page. Anybody know?

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  3. It appears that when you publish it, you get a special code to upload to your blog. I think you need to sign up though.

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  4. When you sign up you need to sign in and under the avatar you will see a drop down box. You drop it down and pick "Blogger." You then push "Get Code." You then copy the code. Then you go to your blog site and push " Add a gadget." Then you push "Html/Javascript" and add the code into the content area. Then publish or post and you are done. Wala!You can check mine out at LibraryJump.

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  5. This activity provided hours of fun. I have so many ideas for the new school year, and I still have 10 more links to follow. I am most excited about Glogster, but all are pretty cool.

    A note on Bookr - I found mixbook.com to be a little more fun and creates a nicer product. There are a few books linked to my blog (science rocks)or you can log in to their webpage and search the galleries.

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  6. I love the bookr ideas. The one I found to read had 1st and 5th grade students together to write. Great idea I will use this year!

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  7. Wonderful...Thanks for sharing the idea...

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