Not every global collaboration has to be a time-consuming, classroom changing, priority rearranging project. Sometimes, you come across one that is so simple (for the participants – not the poor, overworked, organizer) that it’s just impossible to pass up (have I mentioned that it’s practically impossible for me to say “no” to any project?)…

Voice of the World is just such a project. The amazingly talented Sharon Tonner is collecting audio files of students and classes from around the world and compiling them into monthly podcasts. From our Ning:

I am currently working on the children’s area with all our completed vokis. The plan is to diplay all the vokis in one area – wikispace. I am then going to take all the audio from each voki and create a podcast so that it is like a show. I can do this for everyone this month as each file is very small but in later tasks there may be an element of only selecting specific voices for the podcast but still displaying the main task.

Just a wee bit background on the project, i initally created VOTW as an E-twinning project to unite voices around the world. to make it the world I need to branch out of Europe hence why all you lovely teachers are involved.

Because the site is popular I have to adapt to the interest and realise that some of my inital ideas might not be feasible anymore due to the size as it would not be interesting to the children to listen to a podcast that lasts over an hour. When using different voices and languages children need to be kept focused and entertained.

To do this I will incorporate a different piece of software each month that you can use from the internet so that not only are the children participating in a global project using their voice they are also learning new ICT skills and hopefully some teachers too.

Briefly, the next themes are National Anthem, Nursery Rhyme, Jingle Bells, Hopes For The Future etc. All these will be in the child’s language but this should not present a barrier to understanding as the children have already completed the task and know understand the concept.

The power of the voice and sound are amazing tools if used in a structured environment.

Our first task was to create a class Voki and record our students saying “hello” in the local language. Of course, as usual, I went a little overboard (these elementary kids are just too cute) and had our second grade class sing (a capella) a short “Welcome to ISB” song that their music teacher taught them. Sadly, Voki does not allow group avatars, so I had to choose the most generic, cutest looking character to represent our whole class…

[kml_flashembed movie="http://vhss-a.oddcast.com/voki/voki_player.swf?doc=http%3A%2F%2Fvhss-d.oddcast.com%2Fphp%2Fvoki%2Fgetvoki%2Fchsm%3D6c41f0666c0dcd5e12caf6953775dd38%26sc%3D53751" width="300" height="500" wmode="transparent" /]

Aren’t they adorable? Check out all the Vokis here!

Because I’m not sure which class is interested in participating in this project and because each month’s activity seems to be possible as a stand-alone and because the tasks are super quick and easy, I think I’m going to spread the love and let a different class participate each month.