Morfo – more fun with speaking in the target language

So, this is the first blog entry I have done so far on a specific iPad app. I think several tools I have talked about now have iPad apps (such as Fotobabble, Popplet, Diigo etc) but Morfo is specifically for the iPad and iPhone. I have to say to start with that I have yet to use many apps actively in the classroom for anything apart from presentation  as part of the lesson since my school does not have a class set of iPads for instance as I know some schools do. Some pupils I teach do have them and I have suggested several apps for them to use and I hope they do for homework and so on. I have also used some iPad apps for adding to my department VLE and for my own work.

Morfo is a free app that can be used to take a photo and then this photo can be adapted and voices recorded onto it. You can have a look at the Morfo website here: Morfo website. With the photo you take you can make the person into various animals, superheroes, carnival characters, or into various musical styles such as disco glam, goth rock and the 60s. The end creation will also dance around amusingly!

This app is probably best used with young language learners, to help them forget any nerves they have with speaking the language and enjoy making themselves or their friends look silly or funny with the different disguises that the app offers. They can either read something they have prepared, or speak off the cuff in the target language. Topics that suggest themselves immediately for this app are personal descriptions (either what they actually look like, or what they end up looking like having been ‘dressed up’ by the app, but any type of speaking presentation can be done.

Creating a Morfo is very easy. Once you have downloaded the app from the appstore, open the application. To begin with click ‘Create a New Face’ and then either choose a photo that you have already taken or click the ‘Touch here to take a picture’ button. Either way, once you have chosen a picture, you will then have to fit the photo into the Morfo frame. Adjust the head, eyes, nose and mouth appropriately so that they fit over the photo’s head, eyes, nose and mouth. You can also adapt the light of the photo if needs be. Having then clicked ‘Finish’ you will then see your photo with the frame in place. At the bottom you have the following options: Record (click hear to record a voice onto the frame), Makeup (this is where to go to add the disguise / mask, and is probably your first stop), Morf (change the face shape to fatter, elf or hero), Dance (makes the frame headbang to a choice of music) or Share (email, facebook or save the video / picture). I will generally start with clicking ‘Makeup’, then I will click ‘Costumes’ to choose from the various mask options, and then click ‘Costume’ to flick between the various masks for that genre of costume. This is probably where the time wasting will take place in the classroom!

Having picked a suitably amusing disguise, then click ‘Record’ Click the red start button to start the recording and again to finish. You do no have an unlimited time to record (half a minute or a minute I think), so ensure your pupils know this and are prepared. The chances are that they will want to record two or three or more times until they have perfected their speech, which is obviously excellent for grooving in the target language.

Having stopped the recording, you can then listen to it by clicking ‘Play’ or ‘Share’ it. This is what you will want your pupils to do so you can see and listen to their work. I would click ‘Email a Video’ and then your video will be automatically saved and then you can send it as an MP4 file.

So Morfo is a free and fun way of getting pupils to speak the target language. You could also create homework tasks for your pupils by sending them a video of you telling them what their homework is, use it as an introduction to topics perhaps, or maybe even use it as a pronunciation guide. The finished products could also be used as a listening exercise.

Useful links to help you with using Morfo.

How to use Morfo YouTube video

Morfo forum

Babbling on about Fotobabble

Fotobabble is a simple, quick and easy tool that you can use for various specific speaking tasks at all levels. It is a tool which allows you to create talking pictures and slideshows with really only a few clicks of the mouse.

To use, sign up for free at http://www.fotobabble.com and then click on Create a Fotobabble. You then need to upload a photo from your computer that you want to commentate on, choose a photo from Facebook, or find a picture from a set URL. When you have selected your photo, click create, and it will be uploaded. You will then see something like this below:

This allows you to ‘edit’ your fotobabble by adding your vocal comments to it. You will have to allow the microphone on your computer for it to work, then click ‘Record’ and stop when you have finished. You can play it to listen to it back, and on the same page add tags and themes to help others to find it. As with many of these webtools that I have been blogging about, you also have the option of deciding whether to make it public or private (better private for pupils of course – you can choose who can see it by inviting them or sending the relevant URL). You have the embed code and URL ready to cut and paste into your blog, or posterous account or website and when you are happy with everything simply click ‘Save’.

Here is one I made quickly as an example: http://www.fotobabble.com/m/VmVvM2JDVGphTkk9

The uses for this webtool are fairly obvious. With many GCSE syllabi, the oral requires a presentation and in the case of the IGCSE you have to do a presentation of  photo. This seems a perfect way to practise this exact skill. You could have a photo bank accessible by the class, ask them to pick one for prep and add their comments to it. The same goes for the IB ab initio speaking exam. It could just as easily be used as practise for the AS exams, particularly the WJEC syllabus where pupils have to comment on the pictures they see. It should be easy to create a bank of pictures for each topic with questions attached, and pupils simply upload the photos and talk about them. A perfect way of doing a speaking prep, on so many topics – describing people, places, action, or discussing what pictures represent and so on.

Just as with Vocaroo, Voki, Voxopop, GoAnimate and Blabberize which I have blogged about already, Fotobabble is another excellent tool that gets pupils speaking the language, a critical aspect of language that teachers have not been able to assess as easily or as regularly. It is useful for all year groups, from beginners to A level, and should be an integral part of practising topic vocabulary.

Lingt – all encompassing skills work sheet creator

Today I’m going to blog about Lingt. Lingt is a worksheet creation site, which enables you to embed videos onto the worksheet, as well as spoken questions for pupils to answer orally or in written form. Therefore, it is possible to assess all four language skills, reading, writing, speaking and listening on one document, which is a nifty premise, a real interactive worksheet. The best thing about it at first glance is that you can really get pupils practising the vocabulary or grammar in every way outside the classroom, hence promoting the ‘classroom outside the classroom’ idea.

To use Lingt, go to the following URL: http://lingtlanguage.com and click on Signup. After signing up, you will be taken to your homepage. As a free user of Lingt you can only create a certain number of assignments (6)which is a bit of a shame. To be able to do more, you will need to extend your membership (click on upgrade your account). The price does not seem too exorbitant if you want to upgrade to say 50 exercises (currently $39 a year), but I’m not really sure I would need to upgrade to have all the features for a $79 per year subscription. This is just something you will have to decide for yourself based on how effective you feel Lingt is for what you need it for.

I would suggest the best step now is to watch the Lingt tutorial video. Click ‘Help’ from your home screen (or click HERE to watch the tutorial to get an idea what you can do.) This is a well made Screencapture video explaining how to do everything and I strongly recommend watching it and making notes. The video goes through how to create a class, and then how to create an assignment for the classes you have created. There are a number of other useful questions answered for you on the help page.

When creating a class, you do not need to input anything apart from the class name. There is no need to input all your pupils, or even for them to signup to Lingt, as when you have created an assignment, the pupils will simply just go to your Lingt page (more of this later) and click on the relevant assignment for them. They will do the assignment online (on the web browser, before filling in their name and their email address at the end which will alert you to the fact that they have completed the assignment.

When you create your assignment you have a variety of tool buttons to create the texts. You have Voice, Text, Image and Video  (YouTube only) options for teacher prompts, and text and voice buttons for when you want pupils to answer. I have created a Prepositions and Furniture work sheet for my 3rd form. I have a video from Youtube going through the prepositions to start with, with questions in English underneath. Then I have uploaded an image of a bedroom with questions in Spanish again underneath, and then I have finally recorded some questions requiring spoken answers, before leaving one final question for a longer written response, describing their bedroom.

I have yet to test this out with the 3rd form but there appear to be a couple of risks involved with Lingt. Firstly, many schools have blocked Youtube (in my school only the 6th form can go onto Youtube) and I don’t know whether by ’embedding’ a Youtube video into your worksheet on Lingt it will allow the 3rd-5th formers to watch it, or if it will be blocked still. Secondly, pupils will need to have the ability to record their own voice (necessitating a microphone) and not all school computers or pupils will have one, and it could mean them being excluded from a task, or being able to complete it properly. Hopefully they can upload / save their recordings on Lingt – I have experienced problems with Voki and GoAnimate with uploading recordings on a browser, and I don’t know if this would be a problem with this website as well.

Hopefully these problems can be overcome without too many difficulties as the IT technicians in schools become more aware of the potential uses of Web 2.0 tools and other sites for the classroom and education generally, and unblock and allow full or timed use of them. There are of course risks with using Youtube, but the benefits are huge as well, and this should mean that a more sensible policy regarding its use can be found.

I do feel that Lingt has much to recommend it, and after the exam period I will investigate it further and see if I and the pupils experience any problems with its use. It does seem particularly useful for speaking and listening practise outside the classroom, and providing a really interactive worksheet, something I feel would appeal to a lot of students of all ages.

I would be really interested to hear from anyone who already uses Lingt regularly or who has tried it out to see what you think and if it has worked well or not. Please leave a comment below or tweet me @pedroelprofesor.

Blabberize

Another little tool for helping make speaking a bit more fun is Blabberize. It is a little similar to Voki (see earlier post on this) but a bit more basic perhaps. Rather than creating your own avatar from a series of cartoony figures, the difference here is that you will upload a photo from your computer, draw a mouth that will then move around when you are speaking and then either record or upload a recording. It is a very simple tool to use, requiring little practise, simply follow the instructions on the page and press the relevant buttons, and you will end up with an amusing little photo speaking in your voice.

The uses for this should be fairlyobvious too. I actually haven’t used it with a class yet, but I think I will use it with my 3rd and 4th form groups and get them to make little recordings on topics we will cover in class. I think it will be a good way to do descriptions for example – pick a photo of someone famous and they can describe them. It is a good tool for readying pupils for presentations and so on as well

It is a free tool to use, but you will need to sign up in order to save your blabberized photos. After you have finished and saved the little video, pupils will need to copy and paste the URL that they have made and email it to you. Theoretically, you could then embed them onto a webpage and share them with the class and maybe use them as a listening exercise.

 

Voxopop

Voxopop is basically a discussion forum website with the distinction of being a spoken word discussion forum. What it allows a user to do is to add spoken comments to a discussion thread, as well as setting up your own groups for targetted discussion. Within a discussion group you can set up your own threads for specific questions or themes.

I have only just started exploring how this site can be used, but it strikes me as being a very good tool to enable pupils to do more speaking practise outside of the classroom, which is obviously a Great Thing. Not only will it be good for your own pupils, but it could also be an excellent collaborative tool enabling communicating between different schools, throughout the world, and it seems that this is the kind of thing it is already being used for.

So far, I have set up a group for my Lower 6th and Upper 6th sets. When you set a group up it can either be public (allowing anyone to contribute), restricted (anyone can listen, but must apply to be able to participate) and private (by invitation only). I have made both my groups private. Within the discussion groups I have set up subtopic areas for the various topics in the WJEC syllabus (alcohol, drugs, tourism, leisure etc). I have set up a few starter questions in a few of these subtopics and so far one of my pupils has braved this new technology and left some responses! Hopefully more will join in with the discussion, listening to what others have answered and getting ideas for what they can say in the lead up to their speaking exams. I can obviously hear what they are saying and can correct them and add new comments and questions to the continuing thread.

It strikes me that every year group can benefit from this. Pupils could create a bank of speaking answers to various questions within a topic that could help them when revising for a GCSE exam for instance. Role plays could be done between various people (though this could be a slow process if done outside the classroom). It is a way of communicating with penpals or exchange groups, and I love the idea of collaborating with schools abroad with English/Spanish exchanges of answers.

Following a discussion on Twitter yesterday there is now a MFL Twitterati discussion group that I have set up with @Chapeluser @bellaale and @spanishsam. Please do look this up if you want to join – at the moment we have set it up as a way of trialing how it works with the idea of a future collaboration between schools, but it could become a forum for discussion as well. Please contact me on Twitter (@pedroelprofesor) or through here, or the other twitter users as well.

Russell Stannard has done a very good video series on how Voxopop is used, so the best way to get an ideas is perhaps to watch this.

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/voxopop/index.html

Voki

Voki is a really good little tool to get your pupils speaking with a bit more confidence. It basically allows your pupils to create an amusing cartoony avatar which will speak a piece of typed, recorded, or pre-recorded language. The result animation can be either saved, emailed, embedded onto a blog or webpage or saved as a link to be accessed later. The one slight restriction is that the recording will last for a maximum of a minute, which is at least long enough for GCSE speaking presentations for instance.

I’ve used it a fair amount in lessons, firstly as a way of doing some listening practises and then I’ve had pupils preparing their own speeches. First I got my 5th form (year 11) to write out past tense presentations on free time activities, and having corrected them we recorded them onto a voice recorder. The pupils then made their avatars and then uploaded their recordings. The second stage was to get them to copy and paste a pre-written and corrected text in the future tense to the ‘text to voice’ option, and then hearing how it should be pronounced. This was in the lead up to one of the controlled assessments we were doing, and it worked very well as a practise strategy.

Ideally I think it is best to have pupils using a microphone in class or on their own laptops if they have them, as the uploading bit can take a while. There were a few mini problems with the uploading, I think due to our school firewalls, but we got there in the end!

Here is a voki made as a Spanish listening exercise on tv opinions (it was recorded in the dining hall, so please excuse the background noise!)

TV Voki

To create a Voki, go to the website here, and then click ‘Create’ on the top menu bar. You first can customise your avatar by choosing from the various creatures and figures available, and you can also choose a background. Once you have customised your character, click on ‘Give it a voice’ and then either type your words in, record yourself, or upload a premade recording. If you select the text to voice option, make sure you select which language you want it read in – most languages are available with male and female voices.  Having saved your recording, click publish and then you have the choice of how to save or share your newly created animation. You need to signup to save your voki in your account, but this is free. If you don’t signup, then you just have to save the html or embed code so you don’t lose it.

This is a widely used site as far as I know, and the pupils I have used it with have really enjoyed it and benefitted.  If you have any problems using it, please let me know.