Tech-Tac-Toe #2 - Blabberize

Blabberize is a super fun and easy tool to use. I laughed my way through playing with it to get the hang of how it works. First you need to find a picture, then save it to your desktop as a jpeg. Next, you import it into Blabberize. When you get to a part where you have to move points to correlate with the mouth in the picture, it is important to set the large blue dot/point on the bottom of the mouth to help it open and close appropriately.
Once the points are set, you can record your voice, import a sound clip or record from your phone. I recorded my voice, as that is how I envision using it with my students.As you record, you will see the mouth moving. It is important to speak loudly and annunciate clearly, so the mouth opens and closes wide enough to look like the figure in the picture is talking. You can preview the recording and edit it if necessary. When you are happy with the way the recording looks, save it. Click on the "Share it" button to link or send your Blabberize.
This tool will definitely capture students' attention and be a fun way for me to communicate with them. It also seems easy enough for 5 and 6-year-olds to be able to do independently, once they know the steps they need to create their own, though I envision placing the points around the mouth could be tricky.
In kindergarten we do an end-of-the-year research unit where the students select an oviparous animal and write a 'chapter' book with the facts they find. They could find and select a picture of their animal and record a Blabberize to share the most interesting fact they learned. I will need to do more playing to figure out where the kids could save/put their finished Blabberized projects to easily access, as it seems the option would be to embed them in a blog or website.
We could invite our second grade buddies or parents in to see the finished research books and watch/listen to the Blabberize to find out what the kindergartner found most interesting. Kids could even teach their parents how to make a Blabberize while they were visiting our class.