Reflections on Setting up an Avatar

In Tech Class we used Voki to help us create our own Avatars. I enjoyed setting up the Avatar because it was a lot like setting up an Avatar for playing a video game, which is something my own children enjoy doing. After selecting a head, it was quite easy to tweak the skin, hair, and eye color, change the clothes,as well as add some bling. There were a lot of background choices too. After playing around I found the perfect mascot for our classroom, since my name is Huske, I chose a husky dog. I experimented with using some of the recorded voices and taping my own voice. There were a couple words that were very difficult to nail phonetically. I set up a free Voki account quite easily and went ahead and recorded my Avatar giving different sets of directions to my students: arrival procedures, lunch time directions, and dismissal rules. I could set up the Avatar on the screen the first month of school to remind children of our classroom procedures. I also think it might be fun to have the Avatar/mascot give morning announcements.