Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Voki Avatars

Hi all,
The focus of this blog is to review and discuss whether Avatars have a place in our classrooms as an effective learning tool to help improve learning outcomes for students. Points I will consider are:
· Would students of all ages find using this technology interesting and enjoyable?
· Is it user friendly?
· How can teachers use avatars to benefit learners with their studies?

In relation to the first question, I believe students of all ages would find this ICT tool interesting and enjoyable. The ability to create and incorporate different human and animal animation characters with audio into learning would engage a majority of students, young and old.
I created an Avatar for myself and found this tool simple to use with straightforward steps and ample options to create different characters. This would be a novel tool to use in classroom PowerPoint presentations to introduce topics.
Further, I believe Avatars could be of benefit to students in online distance education classes. With the use of Avatars, distance education students would have some type of human element to their online lessons. To be able to put a face to lesson instructions would make learning meaningful and more interesting for distance education students (Melbourne Herald Sun, 2009).
As pointed out in a Herald Sun (2009) news article, it is not only schools, but the Air force, Navy and National Guard that are using 3-D character interaction tools to train students.
Thanks for listening.
Jim

Melbourne Herald Sun, (2009) Virtual learning gets second wind from second life. Retrieved July 28, 2009. From http://www.careerexpo.com.au/news57.php

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