Voki Avatars in Learning Design

There is a website called Voki, used to create the avatar above, which specialises in creating voki avatars.  The website describes itself as a "free service that allows you to create personalised speaking avatars and use them on your blog, profile and email messages". 


Avatars for teachers?
These avatars can be used in many different ways in the classroom. I am already getting excited with the number of ideas I have for this resource! Teachers can create and use avatars to introduce courses or topics, include in blogs, wikis or emails that assist students to complete classroom tasks, assessment items, homework tasks and larger tasks that require several steps. Vocal prompting from  avatars may help students to check they are on the right track, understanding the questions properly and gain clarity of the tasks at hand. 


Through choosing different characters (animals, anime, politicians and other random selections) you can easily personalise avatars for every purpose! Telling stories, sharing facts, instructing, providing direction are all great uses for avatars in the classroom! With changing accents, backgrounds and characters you can even make a smiley face in front of the Eiffel Tower speaking with a Japanese accent! Many are the possibilities!


Avatars for students?
What are the benefits of students using this resource to create their own avatars? A great deal of relevance would be in reflecting their views and responses to learning tasks/experiences.  The use of avatars could encourage group work, commenting and reflecting on learning experiences and peer use of the resource. When used for authentic tasks, making use of real life problems and solutions in group situations that benefit others the learning experience begins to utilise the Learning Engagement Theory created by Greg Kearsley & Ben Shneiderman.  The theory uses three components to encourage and engage learners. These are Relate, Create and Donate. The theory is basic but essential; learners in group settings, creating something that is of particular use and then donating it to someone else that will benefit from it. Through doing this, students see more purpose in the activities and are more likely to become and continue to be engaged in the learning. When combined with Lynch's 8 Learning Management Questions, the learning experiences developed should be planned according to what the learner already knows, what they should know by the end of the lesson and how they best learn, making sure to check they have arrived at the end of the learning experience.  Classroom activities using voki avatars could easily be planned to incorporate these theories. When engaged, learners take responsibility and ownership of their learning ensuring a deeper understanding of the content. Therefore, students are further encouraged to become independent learners.


This tool may encourage students of all learning styles to write, be creative in their responses to tasks, use audio effectively and create an accurate visual representation of their characters, engaging them in the learning. As the Voki site is user friendly, free and easy to navigate, primary students would not need much help in creating avatars. The process would of course need to be monitored. The great thing about these voki avatars is that shy students, ESL students, vocally impaired students or simply those students who find it hard to express themselves will gain an easy way of sharing their opinions. Students can also create avatars to express different points of view, for example creating avatars to resemble characters from a story book which share their thoughts on the major events in the story.


Feel free to comment, especially if you want to share any of your ideas!