Sound bytes take 2
Last month we explored how you can use your nursery computer to record children's voices and other sounds. So what can you do with your new sounds library?
One popular activity is to create your own talking book. This is best done using PowerPoint, but you can also get reasonable results using a word processor such as Word.
To make a talking book you will need artwork. Consider using children's artwork scanned and saved. This will get round any copyright issues. You will need to record children saying parts of the story. Remember to record the title and who has made the book.
Start a new PowerPoint document and create a title slide. To insert your title sound, click Insert-Movies and Sounds- Sound from file, browse to locate the sound file and double click on it. You may be asked whether you would like the sound to play automatically when the page is viewed. This is a good idea for the first slide but remember you can always change the settings. Now click SlideShow-View Show and check that the sound plays.
A similar method can be used for subsequent pages, but depending on what software version you are using it might be possible to adjust the sound file settings. Try right clicking on the sound to access the action settings and change them so that the sound plays when the mouse is rolled over the sound icon.
Alternatively, you can attach the sound to the text so that it plays when the text is clicked. This is good if you have several sentences on a page and it encourages children to click the sentences again to listen to the storyline. Click once on the sound file and click Tools-Custom animation.
Explore the timing options, choosing to start the sound effect when a title is clicked. You could also set the sound to play after a delay allowing children to look at their artwork. Happy talking!
