"It Could Be Worse" on Xtranormal
I made this video using an awesome video creation site, Xtranormal.com. It was actually part of an assignment for an educational technology class.
REVIEW of Xtranormal.com
This is an awesome tool with potential for education, but also potential to turn into a nightmare. The purpose of Xtranormal is to create videos using pre-designed animated figures, scenes, and sounds. You can choose from a range of backdrops, characters (called "actors"), voices, accents and languages. You can, for example, have them speak in British English, French, or Spanish. Once you choose your characters and backdrop, you type in your dialogue and the characters say it in computerized voices. You can enhance the dialogue with sounds like background tunes, bird calls, gun shots, etc., gestures that the characters make, or emotive facial expressions (the expressions wouldn't work for me though, for some reason). In this way, you can very quickly create a short animated video complete with audio and sound effects.
Xtranormal has some educational potential. It is extremely simple and easy to use, and it does not take long at all to put together something valuable (I took hours to make the video above, but 15 minutes would have been enough if I knew what I wanted right off the bat). It can foster motivation and engagement in students, especially shy students, in the same way that Debi mentioned for Voki. By serving as a proxy, shy students can "speak" through their characters without feeling exposed or on the spot.
Unfortunately, Xtranormal also has potential to turn into a nightmare. First, it is perhaps too engaging. It is very easy to spend hours on this trying out every character and sound effect. I found it difficult to tear myself away, it was so fun. I could see students spending whole periods focusing on cinematic effects while giving relatively little attention to language use. Second, although there is an "education safe" setting, it does not edit out foul language. I was able to produce the most offensive dialogues I could think of without any problem - and you know students will go straight to the scatalogical words and curse words! Apparently they are working on eductional "filter" options, but they are not in place yet. Third, the normal site displays some content that is age 13+ (girls in bikinis, talk about dating and relationships, etc.), but they do offer a second URL without 13+ content (http://edu.xtranormal.com). Finally, making and previewing videos is free, but to render videos and play them off-site you only get enough free points to produce one simple video. After that, you'll have to start paying for more points. Again, there seems to be talk about an educator option that will enable a whole class to make videos, but this seems to be still in planning.
All in all I highly recommend trying out this out, for fun if nothing else. And for education, it can easily add spice to a teacher's presentation, but it may be too early to use it with students.
Other information:
The tool serves a presentational mode of communication, and probably would not be useful for a keypal project (unless collaborating on the video at a distance). No special equipment is needed apart from a computer with Internet. No download is needed, and none is available for Mac (a Windows download is available). I found it extremely easy to use, except that I couldn't find a "help" section in case deeper questions arose. An account is needed, and when you sign up you get enough free points to produce your first simple video. After that, you need to buy more points to produce more videos or get access to a wider variety of characters, sounds, etc. Some people have been blogging about education purposes for Xtranormal. The following link gives a review through an actual video created in Xtranormal:
http://sterlingteaches.com/teacher-tips/can-xtranormal-be-used-in-education/
Also, the following blog post presents the educational vision of Xtranormal's creator:
http://fordlog.com/2009/02/xtranormal-and-the-bleeding-edge/
Click to viewREVIEW of Xtranormal.com
This is an awesome tool with potential for education, but also potential to turn into a nightmare. The purpose of Xtranormal is to create videos using pre-designed animated figures, scenes, and sounds. You can choose from a range of backdrops, characters (called "actors"), voices, accents and languages. You can, for example, have them speak in British English, French, or Spanish. Once you choose your characters and backdrop, you type in your dialogue and the characters say it in computerized voices. You can enhance the dialogue with sounds like background tunes, bird calls, gun shots, etc., gestures that the characters make, or emotive facial expressions (the expressions wouldn't work for me though, for some reason). In this way, you can very quickly create a short animated video complete with audio and sound effects.
Xtranormal has some educational potential. It is extremely simple and easy to use, and it does not take long at all to put together something valuable (I took hours to make the video above, but 15 minutes would have been enough if I knew what I wanted right off the bat). It can foster motivation and engagement in students, especially shy students, in the same way that Debi mentioned for Voki. By serving as a proxy, shy students can "speak" through their characters without feeling exposed or on the spot.
Unfortunately, Xtranormal also has potential to turn into a nightmare. First, it is perhaps too engaging. It is very easy to spend hours on this trying out every character and sound effect. I found it difficult to tear myself away, it was so fun. I could see students spending whole periods focusing on cinematic effects while giving relatively little attention to language use. Second, although there is an "education safe" setting, it does not edit out foul language. I was able to produce the most offensive dialogues I could think of without any problem - and you know students will go straight to the scatalogical words and curse words! Apparently they are working on eductional "filter" options, but they are not in place yet. Third, the normal site displays some content that is age 13+ (girls in bikinis, talk about dating and relationships, etc.), but they do offer a second URL without 13+ content (http://edu.xtranormal.com). Finally, making and previewing videos is free, but to render videos and play them off-site you only get enough free points to produce one simple video. After that, you'll have to start paying for more points. Again, there seems to be talk about an educator option that will enable a whole class to make videos, but this seems to be still in planning.
All in all I highly recommend trying out this out, for fun if nothing else. And for education, it can easily add spice to a teacher's presentation, but it may be too early to use it with students.
Other information:
The tool serves a presentational mode of communication, and probably would not be useful for a keypal project (unless collaborating on the video at a distance). No special equipment is needed apart from a computer with Internet. No download is needed, and none is available for Mac (a Windows download is available). I found it extremely easy to use, except that I couldn't find a "help" section in case deeper questions arose. An account is needed, and when you sign up you get enough free points to produce your first simple video. After that, you need to buy more points to produce more videos or get access to a wider variety of characters, sounds, etc. Some people have been blogging about education purposes for Xtranormal. The following link gives a review through an actual video created in Xtranormal:
http://sterlingteaches.com/teacher-tips/can-xtranormal-be-used-in-education/
Also, the following blog post presents the educational vision of Xtranormal's creator:
http://fordlog.com/2009/02/xtranormal-and-the-bleeding-edge/