Crazy Talking in schools in Stirling

One of the number of pilot projects that I have am currently working on with local authority partners in Scotland has been the Crazy Talk project. Crazy Talk is a smashing piece of software that allows the user to import a still image, be it a photograph, a digital image created in a paint package or a scanned drawing. A simple wizard then allows the user to animate the image into an an animated, lip-synching, eye blinking, emotion face pulling avataresque artefact. The beauty of it is that the technical skills threshold for this application is very very low so it is something that ALL teachers could easily do.

I went o visit a P.6 class today who have been using Crazy talk in a a writing project about the Titanic. The pupils have been thinking and writing about what the passengers on the boat may have though about their new life in America and what life on the boat might be like. Here is an example of what one pupil did:

   

The teacher of the class and the Staff Tutors involved have made great claims about how this application has motivated the pupils in this class, particularly many of the boys, to engage with writing with an increased and enhanced level of commitment and interest.

When I visited today I found two P.6 girls recording a piece of writing that they had done in French into Crazy Talk. The content of their writing was very impressive as was the accuracy of the pronunciation. Yes, this a great class teacher in here but she has commented that the application has again motivated the children to write and talk in French .

This work was really interesting and it is to be presented at Learning and Teaching Scotland's Scottish Learning Festival (SETT) in September 07. Have a look at this project's presentation proposal in the brochure.

Many other local authorities are working on Crazy Talk projects so there will be much more to report very soon.

Comments

[Margaret Cassidy]

Found Austin Power comment. It is in Script, then the Fun folder. It is easy enough to delete it from the program file and then the children do not have any access to it.

[Judy]

I have set up a blog to gather details of projects based in schools using CrazyTalk. Could you please encourage any schools in your area that have made use of CrazyTalk. My blog is crazytalk.edublogs.org.

Many Thanks