Text to Speech Movies for EFL ESL

Yesterday on my Quick Shout blog, I wrote about a new tool called Xtranormal for creating text to speech animated movies. Since then I've had a little time to put together a tutorial video and think about how to use it in the classroom. First I thought I'd show you what extra normal produces.There is quite a range of characters and backgrounds so the possibilities for creating situational dialogues is terrific and you can also build these scenes...

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Filming in Second Life 1

Last Sunday, I was lucky enough to make my debut as an educational chat show host on The Consultants-E's Edunation Island where I interviewed Gavin Dudeney. In an attempt to capture this moment in my personal history I decided to video record the event with the intention of editing it into a kind of 'highlights of' show.Since I posted the first clip from this on my Quick Shout blog, I've had a number of people asking me how I recorded it and what...

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Exploiting a Video Viral

For a long time now I've been fascinated with viral marketing campaigns and the way advertisers use these to promote their products. What's really interesting about them is the advertisers ability to come up with really novel and original ideas to capture our attention and make us want to share with others. My Fame Star is a great example of this and one that we can use to create lesson materials.What it does, is enable you to upload a photograph...

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Exploiting Image Sequences

I have to admit that when I first saw Bubblr, I thought it was just a simple tool for adding speech and thought bubbles to images, but when I started to try it out I discovered that it can do far more than that.You can use Bubblr to search through Flickr images, then drag them onto an image line and create a long sequences of images with text /speech bubbles / thought bubbles etc. These can then be printed, saved online or embedded into a blog.This...

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Animated EFL ESL Writing Prompts

Here's something that's fun for the weekend and beyond. A site with a collection of image and gif generators that you can customise with your EFL ESL students and add their texts to. This is an example one I created with talking flowers giving a warning about the environment.The site also offers talking squirrelsTalking catsAnd a few other things like tomatoes, owls and a wizard. There's also a generator that helps you add a text to a packet of...

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