Crazy Talk as a learning tool

Today with Collette we used a programme called Crazy Talk which allows you to add animation to any picture saved on the computer. I decided to practise by creating one that could be incorporated into our collaborative wikispace for People Who Help Us.



I have used the in built text to audio feature to give this paramedic a voice to talk to the children. There is also the option to record audio onto the programme yourself. I would use this feature if I were to use create an animation for a class, it would be more personal as the virtual voices do sound very robot-like. It is also a very time consuming resource to create (as there are a lot of controls to fiddle with to get the animation in the right parts of the face) and this could deter the use of it as a frequent learning tool. Due to the intricit work needed to create the desired facial expressions (although there are some pre-saved movements) I would possibily not use this with children except for well advanced upper years children. Although I still feel it is a useful educational tool as it could be pre-made by the teacher and used as a stimulus for the children's work or a learning context.

Using the Crazy Talk as a stimulus based on a topic that is of high interest within your class would create a deep sense of motivation for the work which you set. There has been much research into the improvement in interaction with tasks if the children are motivated by the challenge. According to Keller's ARCS model of motivation establishing the relevance of what is being learnt will increase children's motivation. Using ICT (in any form) to introduce a new way of using something that is familiar to the children will also meet the Satisfaction aspect of this model, as making it fun for the children will be satisfaction enough to motivate the children to engage with the task in hand.

This approach to using Crazy Talk also fits in with the principles of Curriculum for Excellence as it allows children to see the relevance of their learning at the same time as being challenged to achieve their best. Other areas of CfE that this would meet depends on the subject area that is being covered, I feel that it would be best used in language lessons but could be easily adapted to suit any curricular area being taught. For example it could be used to introduce a stimulus for a piece of creative writing relating to a topic or situation the children are familiar with; it could be used to introduce a character from WWII who can tell children about life during the war; along with any other context that the teacher feels it would be of benefit too.