Monday, February 7, 2011

BP2_Voki

Hi everyone,
I'm an 8th grade Language Arts teacher at Richards Middle School.  My students are currently participating in a novel study.  The title of the novel is Tears Of A Tiger.  To help my students actually engage in the novel, I'm using a web2.0 program called Voki.  My students have to complete weekly response to literature about the story as a homework assignment.  Each response must be posted to the Language Arts Class blog.  I create a blog using my voki avatar giving the instructions and questions for the students to response to the novel.  Students can create a voki avatar as well to post their response or reply.  This helps the students to engage in the novel and it makes them interested in completing homework assignments.

To create the voki, each student must log onto www.voki.com.  They are able to choose the face of their avatar by selecting the type of character they choose.  Then they have the option to select the appearance of the avatar.  In doing this they choose the clothes, skin color, hair color, gender, and accessories and make up.  Once their avatar is created, the student then can choose their type of deliver or speech for the avatar.  They can choose text to speech, phone to speech, or voice recording.  Once they decide, the student will then create their response to literature.  When completed the student can publish response.  When publishing response the students select post to blog.  Once they receive message of successfully posted, the student can then review class blog and post to others comments.

I enjoyed using voki because it motivated my students to read and discuss the novel during class, so that they could have answer and information to help with their literature response homework.  I also got 100% participation and completed homework assignments.  Not only did the students enjoy the assignment, they took ownership and authority over their work.  The students also enjoyed creating avatars and creating a second identity for the class assignments.


Voki Avatar

http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?partnerID=symbaloo&scid=3352349&height=267&width=200
To actually hear the avatar speak please use the website above.

3 comments:

  1. Amazing, Chanda, 100% participation! I really like being spoken to by your avatar! Pretty great!

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  2. 100% participation! That is awesome!!! I love the idea of creating an avatar for myself and the students creating their own avatar as well. Students love creating alter personas now, and to put that to good use in the classroom would be such a great motivator. Thank you so much for sharing, Chanda, can't wait to use this in my classroom!

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  3. Absolutely fantastic and very creative. I would loved a teacher like you. Building an avatar community to discuss a book is genius. I bet you are seeing positive things! Thanks for sharing and look forward to seeing how it turns out.

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