BP11_2009113_Researching and Blogging about Web 2.0 Tools-Week 3-My Peer Comment # 1

from Kathy's Blog

Sunday, November 8, 2009

BP07_20091108_Researching Web 2.0 Tools

There are so many Web 2.0 tools to choose from that it makes it really difficult to narrow the search. Here are three that I have had the chance to play around with and would like to work them into using in my music classroom:





Voki is a program created by Oddcast that gives you a chance to create your own speaking avatar that can be added to profiles and other web environments. The avatar can be personalized using drag and drop interfaces. You can record your own voice by using the phone, a mic, or by using text to speech or text to sing. There are also built-in voice choices and effects. You have your choice of characters including people, animals, and even vehicles, along with different themes and accessories. I wanted an avatar to represent me to use in preparing media presentations to be used in my classroom as well as on my web page and this tool shows a lot of promise. I am going to create a music room mascot or maybe several for different grade levels just to add another layer of fun. Pay a visit to Voki.com and enjoy!



Quizlet is a tool that can be used to create flashcards that can be used for group study and review, to introduce new material through games of matching that are timed. There is a learning mode that will keep track of scores and a test mode that allows for different question and answer formats. I see a lot of valuable uses for this tool for the six different grade levels of music classes as well as my before and after school groups. I am in the process of creating my own sets to try out for next week’s lessons using some basic music fundamentals, and also some questions related to the recorder and piano. I will update this blog and let you know how it comes out. Stop by Quizlet.com and check out all of the sets that are already available.



DoInk.com provides a tool for creating and sharing animations and I thought my students might enjoy seeing them in various media assets as well as having the chance to create their own and share with others, maybe to add to a song they have created or a sound story. Being in a fine arts magnet school, we enjoy the artwork of our students among their many other talents and I think this would be another way of them being able to express themselves and still use it with a musical connection.

3 comments:

RenaJ said...

Where are the tools, Kathy?

November 10, 2009 7:27 AM

ETC - Orr_Toni_Blog said...

I loved the voki sight. I did check it out and want to try to create a recording of my voice with it. Anxious to see it I can get on it at school since so much is blocked. I can see downloading it to my iTouch if I can't get on at school and bringing my avatar into a lesson or Movie Maker movie to present to my students. What Rena was saying that you needed to create a link from your post to the voki site so you do not have to type in the url. You click on the word "link" on the header of where you post your blog to create the link. Hope this helps.

November 14, 2009 7:17 PM

Christina Carboni said...

Hey Kathy,
This was so funny because I was browsing in the Web 2.0 Page: http://www.go2web20.net/#tag:personalize and thought I found such a unique tool. I then clicked on your blog to post a comment and voila! You found the same tool. It was awesome and I loved downloading my voice to create my own personal avatar. We use avatars in our tech class often and this is just another tool to add to the toolbox! Thanks for sharing!

November 15, 2009 10:47 AM