Read the Words.com Actually Works in Spanish!!!!

I am so excited I found a Web 2.0 tool that actually works in Spanish!!! 100% works!!! The best part that I liked about it was that I could create an avatar in almost any shape, size, or color that I wanted. I made a PowerPoint presentation then connected it to a Voicethread. I feel like I have conquered the "Technology World!" I know that tomorrow or next week there will be something else that I will be terrified to make or use. 

Read the Words.com takes a written text and creates an audio file. I really enjoyed it! I pronounces things correctly and puts the stress where it should be. Now the only thing that I did not like about the program is that If you have special characters it will say what that character is. For instance if you type 1/2 cup of sugar it will say "one forward slash two" so if you want it to say 1/2 cup you must type half cup specifically. The other thing that was odd was when I typed one sentence in English and the next in Spanish it will pronounce it in the language you have chosen to use. 

Other than those two little things at this point this is the best program I have found for reading text in specific languages. I know there are a couple of other programs that are better but they are expensive and mostly used by the government and United Nations. Below you can click the play button and hear what I recorded.

Here is the link to my voicethread.
http://voicethread.com/?#u1702005.b1974379.i10418242

Thank a Soldier Today!

This blog was made for educational purposes. I thought to myself why do I have to stay limited to that? I could create a second blog to Thank a Soldier Today but most of my family and friends look at this particular blog. If everyone could just read this and find a soldier and say thank you! It does not matter what your views of the war is remember that many of our soldiers volunteered to be in the military! It will only take you 30 seconds to shake a soldiers hand and say Thank You for your Service! Follow what Gary Sinise is doing on the following link about his band called Lt Dan Band. Watch the trailer about his movie!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLaI4jMOGR4

Many of you know that I lost my father in the military and great friend! I am currently pen pals with about 30 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have made many friendships and have lost many! This is request to share 30 seconds of your life to say Thanks You!

Creating a Personal Learnig Network

I am not a very interesting person when it comes to my personal network and I am old fashioned so I enjoy putting pen to paper often. My biggest branch of my network is to all of my military pen pals all over the world! We communicate mostly via letters. The one thing that I try to do is send them a copy of an interesting article from the Houston Chronicle and the Sports section. I must have bought 500 newspapers during football season!

Here is the link to my personal network that I created via Powerpoint I have never created a pdf  image with Powerpoint it was fun and easy.


http://screencast.com/t/WFGf6n84A