Be a Blabbermouth!


The next time someone says, "You took the words right out of my mouth" you can literally do just that!  Blabberize is a fun little program that you can use to make it look like pictures are speaking the words you input. Here's a little tutorial to show you the coolness. 

This is the home screen. The llama is an example of what you can create. He is cute at first, but gets annoying REAL fast. Go ahead and sign up or you won't be able to save your creation. It's free. You can also just hit "make" and start to play around without signing up. "Browse" will take you to a gallery of others' creations. 

Next, you'll see this screen. You'll have to already have a picture on your computer. I did a quick Google search for a monkey and just dragged it to my desktop (shh...don't tell the copyright police).

After you click on browse, choose the picture and hit "open". Remember I'm a mac girl, so this might look different for my PC peeps.

 Here's my monkey! You can use those pink dots to crop the picture, but I just used it as it was.

Next you'll see this transparent reddish bubble appear. Click on the dots to move it around. You want to do the best you can to cover the area that will move when you record the voice. (If this is as clear as mud, don't worry. Once you play with it, you'll get it!)

 This is me, still playing around the the mouth maker thingy.

The reddish area is the area that will actually move up and down. It's best to choose an animal with a closed mouth. When you browse some of the other ones people made, you'll see why.
 When you like the position of your mouth, click on the pink box with the plus sign eyes (Strange, right?)

Now you get to be the recording star you've always dreamed of being! Or you can just say something in your normal voice. Whatevs. Click on the method of choice. I chose the microphone because my computer has a built in mic.

Click on the red circle, do your thing and then press it again. That's it! Press the play button and see if you like it. Then save & share. You'll see some options about sharing. You can decide to keep it private or share it in the public gallery.  I had a very witty video of this little creature being unhappy with her new faux-hawk, but I forgot to sign in before I started to create, so learn from me and sign in! Kind of odd that you can't sign in after, but it's a free program so I can't complain too much.
Imagine how great this would be for kids to present a report on an animal. You can use any picture - imagine historical figure reports or even inanimate objects, like trees or flowers describing their life cycle!  How about an all about me project at the beginning of the year with the kids using pictures of themselves?  Sometimes our faculty has to present parts of the handbook when we go back to school - how fun would it be to use this to present?  Any ideas popping into your head - feel free to blab about them!


Check out more tech tips at Katie's Techy Teacher Tuesday linky!


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9 comments

  1. Awesome - I had heard about blabberize in a training I went to...but the NEVER mentioned you could make the mouth move! Very cool! Thank you for sharing!
    -Audrey
    The Sweet Life of Third Grade

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  2. I have already experimented with Blabberize,and I'm sold on it. I teach fourth grade social studies, and I made a woolly mammoth skeleton talk about the land bridge theory (which isn't very exciting material), but I'm sure this will put a new spin on things. The possibilities of how to use this really are endless. You can see it if you look for my classroom blog from my teacher blog.
    Sophie and Sadie’s Scholarly Site

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  3. I have used Blabberize for a project I did in my classroom and the students LOVED it! I practiced at home with my own children (sophomore in college and senior in high school). My son was just showing one of his college friends this week and said he wished he had done neat things like this when he was in elementary school. You can check out our project here - http://youngblut.blogspot.com/2010/11/blog-post.html.

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  4. Those ideas sound great! I'm not sure if all of the kids will be ready for this as a back to school project. Maybe I can make it a center for a while and have an animal say their spelling words or math facts...there really are so many possibilities!

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  5. I have used blabberize when studying explorers. I had the explorers "say" one important thing they did or what they are known for. I used it as an intro to the unit. The kids LOVED it!

    ~Lorraine
    vasquezfrogs.blogspot.com

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  6. How fun Denise! Thanks so much for linking up! I will definitely be tucking this trick in my back pocket!

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