Community reviews for Tellagami

I like this tool a lot because it is easy to use and kids enjoy using it to create presentations. A great part is being able to add your own background. This makes it personalized for social studies or book reports. I wish the voice options were all free to give more availability.

Tellagami is a very solid app. It is well used in our elementary schools and loved by our students. I would like to see an app update. The most recent update is over 18 months ago, and while the app is solid, new features and an interface update would be nice since it does feel clunky at times. Our kids love using Tellagami as an option for culminating projects. Since the end result saves as a video in iPad Photos, we can put it and share it anywhere we'd like. It is versatile and unique - there's nothing else like it!

I think this is a great way to engage students in learning, to get students collaborating and to share what is happening in the classroom to a wider community. I also like that the app allows you to upload any picture for the video. This capability allows students to explore and describe almost any concept in fuller detail. I have students that love Vines- This software taps into that interest, therefore inspiring new more vivid learning in the classroom. Students complete these assignments on their own phones. They are able to take them home, edit them and send me the final copy. So glad students are ignited to share their learning with a wider community.

Overall, this app does cool things. However, it would be hard to use this app as a tool for thinking. Instead, it's really just another fancy way for students to present something that they already know (i.e. cooler than powerpoint, but still a presentation). One major downside to this app is that the free version can only be up to 30 seconds recordings. Unless students are very succinct, it could be challenging to finish their message in that timeframe. Additionally, the gami could either motivate or distract. If you have students that obsess over playing with the details, they might spend more time dressing their gami than focusing on learning. I think this app might work well as an assignment extension if students finish their work early. For example, students might choose to extend their thinking by recording a Tellagami presentation if they finish editing their writing/report with extra time to spare. I really don't think that this would be a good use of instructional time--just for the sake of using technology--to make all students use this app as some type of assigned project. I think it could take away learning time to create the gamis and deal with multiple retakes to get the message recorded accurately within the short, 30-second window.

Tellagami is a mobile app for both Apple and Android products that lets you create animated avatars that speak your own voice, or a voice of your choosing through text-to-speech, with many accents to choose from. You can choose the background of the animated avatar from the few that are preloaded, or you can upload an image of your own. the final product is a short video that has your avatar communicating your message to the viewer. Despite updates, the processing of the video sometimes crashes, forcing a re-do. That can get tiresome. Also, only short videos can be made. I have strung short videos together to form a three-minute Tellagami, but doing so took precious time.

Students are very engaged. They love making an avatar to present what they have learned. The app though, has changed lately and many choices are no longer free. This limits some of the presentation tools for the students. The typing tool is no longer free, so students have to use their own voice and this is difficult for some students to do effectively.

I liked giving the opportunity to students who don't like to do public speaking explain their learning. However now that they app has changed to not all free it doesn't give the students all of the opportunities as it did before.

I use this app at our school in grades K-5 every week. I love how even kindergarteners can create their own backgrounds and re-tell a story that they have heard during read-aloud lessons. I have also successfully used this app with self-selected mute students who eventually became comfortable speaking through their "avatar." I do not find it a limitation to have a 30 second recording. It forces students to be fluent and succinct. By changing the avatar's emotions, students have been able to express their own feelings during our conflict resolution lessons.

I still like the app as an introduction to movie creation with animated narrators using only the free version. I would not recommend a school district splurge for the paid version. I think the developers could make enough money by selling in-app purchases of background images and different clothing "packs" and still let users personalize the avatars and use text-to-speech free. That would make it more valuable.

Tellagami is a great app that allows you to create and share a quick animated Gami video. Create a Gami to help launch a lesson or use it as a creative, fun way for students to demonstrate their knowledge in 90 seconds or less. The time constraints help students learn to be precise. ...I wouldn't use Tellagami for every project, but sure like the option of having this app available for students to choose from.