VOKI

Do we need to send our avatar that we created too?

Voki tool-Kendra Marshall After looking through the Voki website and playing with some of the examples, I found it interesting to create the avatars. I am assuming that because it is free, that is why there are limits and you can only text to talk a certain amount of characters. My avatar was a snowman that I’d use to introduce the four seasons in a lower level grade, such as Kindergarten or First grade. They most especially love to watch cartoons and would enjoy this as my introduction to the seasons. It would elicit talk and they would be excited to learn more about this science lesson. I think it would be interesting at the end of the unit on seasons, to have the first graders/Kindergarteners work with older buddies and they could create their own avatar about one of the seasons. They could create one that tells a little about one particular season and then when they are done, have a little presentation so they can see what each other has created. The biggest drawback to this that I notice is the voice and how you might have to spell phonetically so that when it speaks you can understand the words. We don’t have external microphones in our school, so if they recorded their own voice it might not be clear with just the use of the microphone that is in the pc. Again, I only assume that since this is free, that the amount of talking allowed is limited, so the students would need to decide the best way to convey their thoughts in the least amount of characters. In looking at the website, I surmise that you must pay to have more access, and I just don’t see the need to do that in our school. We are a private school with limited funds, so that would be an expenditure that we couldn’t justify. Since there is availability to the free resource, that would be enough. This tool would be a fun activity for kids to show their creative side in a different aspect rather than just pencil and paper work. I think the students would enjoy the avatars and talking aspects of them. Using on a regular basis would not be efficient for me in the fact that the classroom computers don’t all work and wouldn’t be able to support this web 2.0 technology. (they are old pc’s). The children only attend the computer lab once a week and for 30 mins, so they’d need more time. The other issue would be that if they worked with an older buddy, we’d have to coordinate times & schedules, so that would be hard too. Maybe once in the first half of the year and once in the second would be more feasible, but it would be fun.