Voki

Voki is a free website that allows users to create a speaking avatar tool. At first glance, it may seem to be a bit of an odd tool, but it actually does have some uses in the classroom. What's more, Voki has a section on its website designed specifically for educators, so you always have other teachers' opinions and ideas at your fingertips, right on the Voki website.

You don't have to have a user account to create a Voki, but you don't really have access to your creation after it's been made/sent to someone, so I recommend signing up on the website.

You can create a character (anything you want: a "real" person, an animated character, an animal, an alien, etc.) of your choosing and customize the background to be nearly anything. Then you get to add words. You can make your character speak by typing in words, uploading an audio file, or even calling into the company and using your own voice (that part is pretty cool)! If you do the type-to-speech, you end up using a voice that's a little robotic, and you have to make sure to spell things phonetically so that the avatar pronounces the words correctly.

A friend of mine created a Voki for her 4th graders' first day of school. She did the call-in feature and made the avatar mimic her own appearance. This was her welcome message for the class: the students viewed/listened to this as soon as the bell rang. I've used it as a welcome message on the home page of my website. Some of the students think it's cool, but some find the robotic voice a little creepy, lol, so maybe it's best to use the call-in feature. :)

Uses for Voki in the classroom:

1. As a getting-to-know-you activity, all students could create Vokis to represent themselves. The Voki could speak essential information, favorites, etc. about themselves, and then all students could play their Vokis for the class. 
2. After reading, students could create a Voki to summarize what they read. This could be with a textbook or a novel -- it doesn't matter. 
3. After reading a story, students could pick their favorite character from the book. Then they could create a Voki that speaks from that character's POV.
4. On a similar note, students could create a Voki of a famous person or a historical figure ("I am George Washington.") and make the avatar speak facts about that person's life and achievements.
5. Instead of always posting things to your classroom website in words, you could create a Voki to get the information across. For instance, I have embedded a Voki into the class blog entry before, and used it to ask the blog questions for that post. I ended up including the text, too, because I was afraid students wouldn't have speakers available, but...in a perfect world...
6. For students who have just written a story, they could make an avatar of their choosing, and then use the call-in feature to read their story to the world!
7. Students could create a mini-lecture to teach other students the material from certain parts of the notes or text. (I feel like I'm grabbing at straws with this one...)

I'm anxious to search and hear more options for Voki in the classroom. I know there have to be more out there!



Here's an example of a Voki...this is the one that I created for my last blog post at FHS in 2011.