Our media center is filled to the gills with voters today.  Our students have the day off, and we teachers have a records day. 

This has given us an unexpected “play” day, when we can sit down and explore with teachers. 

Our Spanish teacher asked if we had ever heard of Voki.com, where a colleague of hers had recorded an avatar speaking in Spanish. Needless to say, we have spent the last hour playing — I mean, engaging in meaningful professional development — and thinking about how Vokis could help us make podcasts that are more engaging for children.   The avatars can be installed on Web pages, blogs, Myspace, etc.  The avatar’s mouth moves along with the text, which can be input via cell phone, computer microphone, an uploaded podcast, or machine-read from inputted text.  See ours above.

This day serves as a reminder of the pleasure of sitting down and just exploring with teachers.  As colleagues have come into the lab, ideas are shared and exchanged, and it’s so much more rewarding than standing in front of a group of teachers telling them “what” and “how” to do things.

(Heads-up: Students under age 13 cannot create an account.)

See this article in Educational Leadership by Kenneth E. Vogler.  Here are the two opening paragraphs:

Since the days of Socrates, asking questions to assess student understanding has been a core component of teaching and learning. Today, verbal questioning is so prevalent in education that it’s difficult to picture a classroom in which a teacher isn’tasking questions. In fact, researchers note that verbal questioning is second only to lecturing as the most common instructional practice (Black, 2001). Teachers ask about 300–400 questions per day and as many as 120 questions per hour.

However, teachers often use verbal questioning merely as an organizational tool—to check students’ class work and homework, review and summarize lessons, and evaluate students’ learning (Black, 2001; Goodman & Berntson, 2000; Wilen, 1985). But verbal questioning has the potential to do much more. It can motivate students to pay attention and learn, develop students’ thinking skills, stimulate students to inquire and investigate on their own, synthesize information and experiences, create a context for exploring ideas, and enhance students’ cumulative knowledge base (Black, 2001; Goodman & Berntson, 2000; Hyman, 1974).