Tellagami Edu.

This resource allows the user to create a talking character who speaks the words that the user either types or records.

The original purpose of the Tellagami app was for the user to be able to send and share animated messages. However, there is now a Tellagami Edu app to cater for the use of this app in schools. Although the education app is a paid app, it removes all of the in-app purchases and allows students and teacher access to more features.

This app has the potential to be used in multiple areas of learning. In regards to the learning of Te Reo Māori, this app can be used at the conclusion of the topic to present students’ learning or to present their own personal speech in Te Reo, for example a pepeha.

Year Level

Any year level

Digital Technology

Apple App

Access

Search ‘Tellagami Edu’ on iTunes.

Features

Paid App.
Convert up to 450 characters of typed text to speech (equal to 30 seconds).
Choose from 4 female and 4 male voices.
Voice record a message up to 90 seconds for your character to say.
Customise characters with the choice of 4 tops, 4 bottoms, 4 shoes, 5 hairstyles, and multiple colours for each item.
Choose a background for your character (16 options). There is also an option to upload own background or take a photo using the camera.
Drawing option to write or draw on the video.
Save completed video to device.
Share the video via message, email, or social media.
Easy layout to navigate.

Review and Critique

This resource allows students to create their own short presentations with personalised characters. For the learning of Te Reo, this app would be ideal to share knowledge and information, such as a pepeha a weather report, an event, or explain likes and dislikes.

Tellagami fosters students’ interest and engagement by integrating familiar technology, and allowing them to gain a sense of ownership and pride in presenting their personal learning (Duchesne & McMaugh, 2016; Kucirkova & Falloon, 2017). The Tellagami presentations are able to be saved to the device or shared with others via email or social media. Therefore, students are able to take the classroom learning home to share and discuss with whānau, resulting in students’ educational achievement and overall well-being being benefited through the support and collaboration of family (Duchesne & McMaugh, 2016; Fraser, 2016; Kucirkova & Falloon, 2017).

As well as collaboratively working with whānau to extend the learning of the language, this resource has the potential to become a collaborative activity (Kucirkova & Falloon, 2017; Mills, 2014). Students, in pairs or small groups, could write, create and present a weather report, or a recount of an event to share with another group, or the class. Students interacting and working collaboratively to create and present the learning, deepens understanding of the language as it creates a challenging, yet achievable digital task to supplement the learning (Mayes & Freitas, 2013; Mills, 2014).

This resource also has the potential to aid teachers with assessment, as well as feedback. If students are asked to share their Tellagami presentation with the teacher via email for example, then the teacher will be able to record a student’s progress with the language, as well as provide specific feedback and feedforward so that the student is aware of the areas they are achieving in, and the areas that need some improvement (Churchill, 2017; Duchesne & McMaugh, 2016).

A critique of this app is the limited availability of it across a range of devices. Tellagami cannot be used through a browser, and can only be accessed on Apple devices. It was originally available for Android devices, but the app has been taken down due to issues with the functionality. This is an issue for those classrooms that have devices other than iPads, as they will be unable to access the resource.

Another critique is the small amount of time that the app allows for the final presentation. 30-90 seconds may not be enough time for some students to express all the information they need to, especially when trying to present a pepeha, as some student’s pepeha will be longer than others.

Recommendations for Users and Developers

I would recommend that Tellagami be used as a tool to summarise, present and share what students have learnt over the specific Te Reo topic. Without securing the specific Te Reo vocabulary first, students would find it quite difficult to write and then speak (or type) a short speech for their character to say.

I have recommended this resource to be used throughout all the years at primary school due to the app being relatively easy to use, and the sheer possibilities that it could be used for in regards to digitally presenting and sharing multiple topics of Te Reo learning.

For the developers, it would be recommended that the app be adjusted and remarketed for Android users so that all students are able to use this app, not just those who have iPads. It would also be helpful to be able to access this app from a browser, simply because laptops are still frequently used devices in schools at the moment.

Another recommendation to the developers would be to extend the maximum time of the presentation from 30-90 seconds to 120-130 seconds so that students have a longer time available to include as much information and learning as they can.

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