Blabberize! Something to blab about!

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http://blabberize.com/

At first glimpse you might think that Blabberize (http://blabberize.com/) is just a fun little tool that will give students a good laugh.  I know because that is what I first thought.  On second glance, I thought, “Kids will love this. How can I use this tool to help them to learn?”  

 

How would I use Blabberize?

 I thought about a project that the second graders have been doing forever.  Each second grader chooses an endangered animal and makes a three slide Powerpoint presentation.  Utilizing Powerpoint is an important skill for presenting content and students should learn how to select pictures and type in content as early as possible; however, how fun would it be to take that Powerpoint content and create a Blabberize at the end of that lesson.  It would certainly engage the second graders and it would mix things up a little bit in the technology department.  I don’t think it is ever a bad idea to change things up and have some fun with technology and that is what I really like about this fun little tool.

That being said, the students already have to research their topic and come up with the basic facts like what they eat, how big the animal gets, what special attributes they may have and some fun fact that not everyone may know.  I really like the idea of taking that and putting it on Blabberize and allowing them to create video to incorporate on their slides.  Maybe they just add it to the end of the presentation as something that the animal they picked may want everyone to know!   This is especially great if you are doing it for Earth Day or for Wildlife Conservation Day (this year it was on December 4^th). 

So here is how it works:

First, you find the content that you want the animal of your choice to say (and there is nothing to say that this has to be an animal…I think this would be fun for the 4^th grade planet’s project too).  Then you save your image, and a full front on image of your animal will work best, then you simple select that image from your file.   

You add a mouth and maneuver it over the mouth of the animal remembering that it will open from the bottom.  Then, finally, you record your audio.  While you are recording, you can even see the mouth open and close so you know how it will look when it is done.  

 If you like what you see, you click ok and it is automatically saved to your created gallery, if not you can edit from there.  It really is very easy and should be absolutely no problem for a second grader on up.

On the right, you will find two examples.  The first one was done by Nicholas, a second grader, all on his own! 

The next one is mine.   Hope you enjoy them and have fun learning something new!