voki: create talking characters
TRANSCRIPT
Sharon Thornton- Instructional Technology
Voki: Create Talking Characters
Navigate to http://www.voki.com Your students can create a custom avatar and type or record text to make it speak. To get started: Create an account. This will be your teacher classroom account that your students will also use to log into so make the password something easy to type and remember.
Note: You don’t have to have an account to create a Voki, but you won’t be able to save it or get any kind of website URL or code to put these on your blog or wiki.
Now you will see a screen like this where it shows you are logged in.
Have students login with this same information.
Now it will take you
through a wizard where
you will create your
avatar character.
Start with Customize
your character.
Click on Create your own wiki.
Sharon Thornton- Instructional Technology
Choose a character type
Choose Male or female
Select your character.
Now click on the hair and lip
icons to change hair and mouth.
When you are finished, click the
green done button at the
bottom
Now click on the clothing
and bling tabs to add
clothes and jewelry.
Click done when you are
finished with your
character
Sharon Thornton- Instructional Technology
Now you are ready to make your Voki Character speak
Important Note: If students plan to embed these in their Gaggle blogs, make sure to tell them not to record personal information- that means no last names please.
Last option: You can use your phone to record a message for your character to speak. Click on the green Done button when you are finished adding a message. You can add backgrounds if you like as well.
Let’s make your character
speak.
If you want the voice to be your
actual voice, click on the
microphone and then connect a
headset with microphone to
your computer.
You can also type a message
and it will read it for you, but it
won’t have your own voice.
Note: You can choose the voice
that it will use.
You could also upload an MP3
file you already have recorded
and exported in Audacity.
Sharon Thornton- Instructional Technology
Important: Save your Voki- Make sure to save your Voki so you can access it later.
Name your Voki and click Save.
Send your Voki to a friend or yourself via email.
To save your Voki so you can
view it later or edit it, you must
click on Publish button to save it.
Click on the Send to a friend
There is also an edit link here for
you to go back and edit this Voki
later.
Sharon Thornton- Instructional Technology
How to see all of your and all of your student’s Voki characters
Click on the Send to a Friend tab
Fill in your name and your friend’s
email address.
Students can send this to themselves
using their Gaggle email account.
Click on the My Voki tab to see all of your Voki’s-
including those created by your students.
You can see all of mine below here.
Sharon Thornton- Instructional Technology
Some Ideas for integration into the curriculum Students can:
Explain how to solve a math problem or scientific process.
Orally share their “writing pieces.”
Create a “newscast” based on research or current news events.
Tell a story.
Record information from a research project as if “giving a lecture.”
Explain a concept such as metamorphosis
Describe properties of objects.
Discuss a concept such as the purpose of the 3 branches of the government.
As an “authentic” foreign language experience, students are writing, reading,
revising, and speaking to an audience.
Foreign language students can use Voki to speak “in character” for different role
play assignments.
To aid resource students, teacher can record oral pronunciation of vocabulary words
as a review-guide for upcoming assessments.
New! Voki for Education and Lesson Plans
Voki for Education- Visit the Teacher’s corner, see tips and directions.
Sharon Thornton- Instructional Technology
Lesson Plans Data base
You can search for lesson plans by grade level and subject.
Sharon Thornton- Instructional Technology
Optional: Embed your voki message in your blog or wiki. How to embed your voki character in your wiki or blog (except for Gaggle email- see those directions below) You can also email this to a friend.
If you are going to embed this to your blog or wiki- STOP and open that right now and login. Once you are logged into your site, you can return to these directions:
Click on Publish Your Voki.
It will take you to this screen.
You can choose the size of your Voki.
Grab code to put it on all the following social network sites such as eBlogger and Word press.
Get a general Javascript embed code.
Get the website URL to share.
Sharon Thornton- Instructional Technology
Send Voki to your eBlogger Blog home page (on sidebar) or blog post.
This is two different views of what your Voki will look like in your blog
It will prompt you to enter
Your Blogger username
Blogger Password
Blog URL. I had to copy and paste the exact address of my blog since it automatically filled in a generic one.
Check Post to sidebar if want the Voki on your main blog page. Note: If you leave this unchecked, it will put it in a new blog post.
Click on the blue Post button.
This is what your Voki will look like posted to sidebar.
Sharon Thornton- Instructional Technology
Note: If you are posting student Voki’s then I’d choose to post these in a blog post.
-Gaggle Email Blogs
How Students Embed their Voki Character into their Gaggle Blog Follow these steps once students have set up their blogs.
o Click to add a new Blog Entry
o Title your entry. Now click on the globe in the toolbar.
This is what your Voki will look like in a blog post. You can go to design mode in your dashboard and edit this post’s title or add text about your Voki.
Sharon Thornton- Instructional Technology
Say Yes at the Security Information window if it pops up.
First copy the URL for you Voki that you
made (look in the Publish Your Voki
window.)
Paste this URL website. Right Click>paste or Press the Control then V key. Type a message like Welcome to my blog. Click on Insert Link button.
Click on the Update Blog button.