Third graders at Varina Elementary have been learning about famous Americans (SOL3.11b George Washington; Thomas Jefferson; Abraham Lincoln; Rosa Parks; Thurgood Marshall; Martin Luther King, Jr.; and Cesar Chavez;). Today, students in Ms. Long’s class used SitePal to make them come to life. First, the students chose one of the famous Americans to represent, and we made sure that each person was picked by at least one student. Next, we did some quick research to find some facts and pictures of the person. I instructed the students to find a photo that showed their face up close so we could use it in the animation. We downloaded the image by right clicking it and selecting “Save image as.” Then, we went to SitePal and clicked the Demo button. We uploaded our image and followed the site’s instructions to add special markers to the eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and chin. Once that was done, the students were surprised to see the famous American blinking and looking around! To add the voice, students clicked the TTS (Text to Speech) tab and typed some sentences with good facts from their research. SitePal has customized male and female voices to choose from that read the text aloud. Finally, we used the Screencastify Chrome extension to record our animation. It’s amazing how realistic and life-like they look! You can see all the videos here.
