Xtranormal

For my ICT class week, our assignment was to blog about a storytelling website of our choice.  I clicked through a couple different ones, and chose to look more into Xtranormal.com.

In this website, users can tell their story through an animation.  Users select their theme, set, and actors, then add dialogue and actions.  Dialogue can be recorded with a mic or you can record speech with a mic and input it.  To add motions, one simply drags and drops the motion they want onto the dialogue at the appropriate place.  In addition, users can drag and drop sound effects, facial expressions, add background music/noise, and even control the which "camera" is being used at any given moment.

Of course, the text-to-speech feature isn't that great, but it gets the job done.  If I were to ever use this again, I would likely be more prone to recording my own audio.

I think this would be a neat little site to use in a classroom.  There is not much of a learning curve at all. I learned the ropes in only a few minutes.  I'm not sure how effective a program like this would be in a band room without it becoming a superficial use of technology.  I can however see it being used in an English class to tell stories/re-enact scenes from a novel.  Students could use it to present ideas in a medium other than public speaking.

From my short time with Xtranormal, it seems like a neat little site.  It's easy to use, has a free version, and creates a fairly polished product.  Check out my mini-story below.  (And no, I do not have a 15 page paper due tomorrow that I haven't started.)


Stikz Movie
by: justine_714