Make your own avatar to bring a lesson to life

Let’s make a Voki! Want to bring life into your lessons in a creative way? Try making a custom, voice activated avatar. Or better yet, have your students create one with www.voki.com.

Check out my Voki that I created to introduce a vocabulary lesson. Click on my cute Voki picture above or use the link below:

http://tinyurl.com/zzzspqz

I used this with my middle school students and they love it. (Word of caution: Be sure to preface ground rules as to what you expect your students to do with them and be specific. Otherwise, someone in the class will make their Voki say something it should not. I learned that the hard way!) There are lots of possibilities for Vokis in the classroom. Or I could see a librarian add this to the Home page of a library site to explain how to navigate the site. There so many people, animals, and cartoon characters, all are fully customizable. You can record your own voice or choose from numerous computer generated voices in a variety of languages. Then you can type your text and the Voki will read what you have typed. Finally you can share or post your Vok fairly easily by clicking Publish.

When I first used this site, I was amazed with how much you can do and again, everything I have done has been totally free. You can get more examples with the educator paid version but there are plenty of options with the free version.

I have considered adding a voki somewhere to my library website just to add some interest and creativity. Here is a link to several classroom activities with a Voki.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/using-voki-in-the-classroom.shtml