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Announcing: Voki Education!

What it is: Voki is a free web tool that let’s students create personalized speaking avatars that can be used in a variety of online formats (blogs, email, direct link, social network profiles, etc.).  Now, Voki has released an exclusive education edition of their service.   Voki Education has some additional features that make it even more useful for the classroom.  Sharing is now easier than ever.  Students and teachers can embed their finished Voki in webpages, email, and social network profiling, they can also share using a “Voki link” which will allow students to share a simple URL to a Voki page.  Students no longer need access to a website or blog to share their Voki scene!  Voki also provides custom links for educational partners like SymbalooEdu, very handy.  A new lesson plan database provides teachers with a searchable database of lesson plans that utilize Voki for learning.  Teachers are encouraged to share their Voki enhanced lesson plans.  In the new Teacher’s Corner, teachers and “expert” users can discuss anything related to Voki.  There is even a Newbies corner with a series of discussions in Q&A format.  Voki is now ad-free, this makes it an even sweeter deal for the classroom! How to integrate Voki Education into the classroom: Voki lets students create custom characters that they can personalize and make speak.  These speaking avatars can be used in a variety of ways in the classroom, now that Voki Education includes the ability to “Voki Link” it is easier than ever for students to create and share.   Students can make their characters speak by recording a voice via phone, text to speech, record by microphone, or upload a sound clip. Students can use Voki to create characters modeled after historical or literary characters.  Students can bring those characters to life-a virtual wax museum of sorts! Those finished Voki’s can be embedded in a class website or blog, or shared by a Voki Link.  In math, students can create Voki’s that speak a riddle or word problem.  The Voki’s can be shared with other students in the class with a challenge to solve the problem.  At the beginning of the school year, students can create Voki’s to introduce themselves to you (the teacher) and classmates. Are your students learning how to speak a second language? Voki’s are a fun way for your students to practice that second language.  They can record by classroom phone or built-in microphone.  Throughout the year students can add characters to their new language and hear the progress they have made.  Voki’s make a great accompaniment for the beginning reader.  Students can create a virtual character and record themselves reading.  They can play back their Voki to listen to their fluency, pronunciation, and annunciation.  Once again, these recordings can be collected throughout the year as a way for students to track and hear their progress.   Students can use Voki characters to summarize any learning (how about a summary of the State of the Union Address?).  Have a science fair coming up that needs a little tech infusion?  Have students create a virtual scientist that describes their experiment or the science behind it. In my last post, I talked about how I integrated technology in my 2 computer classroom with a tub system.  Voki’s would be an outstanding way to record instructions for students that can be played back.  Because they can be saved with a Voki Link, the speaking character can be open along side other activities.  It will be like having a virtual teacher there next to them!  Voki recordings are perfect for transitional instructions. These can be put up on a projector-connected computer or an interactive whiteboard to be played back for students. Tips: When students publish a Voki they can choose to login or register to save it, or click “No Thanks” to go directly to the published Voki with embed codes and links. Please leave a comment and share how you are using Voki Education in your classroom.

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World Education Games: Registration Now Open!

Posted by admin | Posted in Character Education, Foreign Language, Geography, Interactive Whiteboard, Knowledge (remember), Language Arts, Math, Middle/High School, Primary Elementary, Science, Secondary Elementary, Spelling, Teacher Resources, Web2.0, Websites | Posted on 01-02-2013

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What it is:   Holy cow, I am SO excited!  Today registration is open for World Education Games!!  If your students have never participated with World Education Games (like World Math Day), this is the year.  They will thank you for including them in this fun world wide contest.  February 1st, that’s today, registration is open and the official warm-up training period for students begins.  On March 5h students can participate in World Literacy Day, March 6 is World Math Day, and March 7 is World Science Day.  March 22nd Global award presentations begin with the Official World Education Games Awards.  The World Education Games is an annual global online olympics to get students from age 4 to 18 excited about learning.  The fun comes in the friendly competition between countries as students compete to represent their country in the games.  There are 3 days of games focused on literacy, math and science.  The games are a great way to help students in speed, accuracy and general fluency in core computation, number and spelling skills.  World Science Day has been designed to encourage curiosity and excitement in science while helping them answer knowledge, application and reasoning questions.  Each game (a competition against other students from around the world) lasts just 1 minute.  Students can go head to head as often as they would like, but only the first 50 games are counted toward the competition point tally.  World Math Day was launched in 2007 and my students have taken part in this fun competition each year.  Since then, Literacy and Science day has been added to the games.  SO much fun!

How to integrate World Education Games into the classroom: World Education Games are such a fantastic way to encourage students to practice foundational skills.  In the past, I have hosted an “opening ceremonies” at my school and done it up like the Olympics with flags, songs, etc.  We go over what the World Education Games are and then make a big deal about the handing out of usernames/passwords (like lighting the torch) and then we kick off our training portion.  Students get excited about participating in this fun day and we get lots of “training” in before the big day.  On the actual day, we wear red, white and blue and play against kids from around the world.  This is great fun in a one-to-one setting or a computer lab where all students can participate simultaneously.  Don’t have that option?  Because the games are 1 minute long, students can play 5 games each on classroom computers in a rotation.

Since your students are competing against students from around the world, why not use the competition to practice using a map and identifying countries?  Since we have a one to one iPad program, we do this digitally with a Google Map.  Each time a student competed against a country, they would come up to the board and put a “pin” in the map.  Don’t have devices for each student? Use an interactive whiteboard or the paper map and actual pins on a class bulletin board, these options are just as fun!

Don’t forget closing ceremonies at the end of World Education Games.  Make up fun medals and give them out to top performers, hardest trainers, etc.  Think outside the box on these.  Not all kids are speedy in their fact recall…find a way to honor their participation and hard work…did they see huge improvement or growth? Honor those achievements!

The World Education Games are available for free on any internet-connected computer and as a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10 app.

Check out the Resource page for teacher and student guide, a world map, a poster, and for School-in-a-box information.

Tips: Schools participating in the World Education Games can also work toward giving other children the opportunity to start school.  World Education Games has partnered with UNICEF to make this happen.  During the games, host a fundraiser to purchase “School-in-a-Box” Each $236 donation is enough to send 80 kids to school!  What a great way to help kids understand what a privilege education is and model compassion and empathy for others.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using World Education Games in your classroom.

Comments (1)

Tina Moricz said on 02-02-2013

We love the World Education Games. One of the most exciting parts for the students is getting to play against other people around the world. I love the fact that the training seems to help them build skills quickly. I assign it as our homework and it becomes a rotation in the room for when kids finish work quickly. We do a Math-a-thon on World Math Day. It usually falls on our Early Release Day so we stay after school and allow the kids to keep on playing. We provide snacks and play motivational music. This way we can ensure students who might not have technology at home can complete the challenge. We also celebrate with awards for our students and recognize them at our school assembly. So far, it has been mostly our 4th and 5th graders competing, but this year I am trying to get everyone else on board.

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