Vocabulary Lists With Voice

One of the videos I made playing with Adobe Voice.

I teach science to ELLs, so there are new vocabulary words with every unit.  Some of them are difficult for my ELLs pronounce, so my ELLs are reluctant to use them in classroom conversations.  I came up with a new way to support my ELLs by making virtual vocabulary lists where the students see the words in English and Spanish, and then see and hear them being pronounced and used in a sentence in English.  Each word is also accompanied by the picture of my choosing.  The videos will be put on my class website where the students can access them at their discretion.  Here is an example of one of my slide shows.

The novel app I found for making these short slide show videos is Adobe Voice.  It is a available on the iPad and is free and it is very easy to use.  I easily made videos of my vocabulary list where I typed the word in English and Spanish and then made a short sentence to show how it is used in a sentence and give it some meaning.  At first I felt limited by the amount of characters that I could use as I had wanted to include a definition too.   In the long run it was probably better that I had to write short sentences to keep it simple for my students.  I picked out the templates from a large selection (one caution here not all of them allow for two lines of text).   I typed in my text and  added pictures, mostly by searching keywords in their database.   I then pushed a button on each slide to read my text and record my voice.  These were easy to redo if needed.  There is also an option for changing the music that plays in the background. 

I can see some great applications of this program in a classroom with iPads.   Students could write and illustrate and read original stories.  Students could use it to make or illustrate other projects.  The voice recording makes it perfect for foreign language language programs or working with ELLs.  It would give ELLs a perfect chance to hear their own voice on the playback.  

Below is a list of the Pros and Cons that I found in my usage of Adobe Voice

Pros of Adobe Voice
Free 
Super easy
Very fast
Voice recording
All aspects are editable at every stage and after completion
Great templates
Dubs appropriate volume music behind voice
Very well designed
Searches pictures in its own database
I didn't find any bugs or glitches

Cons of Adobe Voice
Limited to two lines of text
Only available on the ipad platform
Not uploadable to YouTube 
Adobe branding
Templates not customizable