Voki : Personalized Speaking Avatars

What is it?
"Voki is a free service that allows a user to create personalized speaking avatars and use them on a user's blog, profile, and in email messages. Students don’t need a microphone to record on Voki; they can use any telephone, including their personal cellphone. Voki recordings can be called in by phone, created with text-to-speech (typing), using a microphone, or by uploading an MP3 file" ("Voki," 2011). Students can remain anonymous by not revealing their actual picture; instead, students create and use an avatar when publishing to the world. There are a few weaknesses to Voki. "The maximum recording time is 60 seconds. If too many students are working at once on their recordings using their cellphones, the website can experience slow running time" ("Voki," 2011). Voki requires an email address to set-up an account in order for users to “keep” his/her Voki creations. Also, "when typing text you may need to type phonetically so that the voki pronounces the word correctly" ("Voki," 2011). Voki is available for free at http://www.voki.com/

Voki Classroom is the educational version of Voki. While there are many similarities to the original Voki, Voki Classroom allows for a maximum recording time of 90 seconds, as opposed to 60 seconds. There is also no student registration needed through Voki Classroom's creation of class accounts, which allow for multiple class accounts under which the teacher can create multiple student accounts. Teachers can even set lessons to private. There is also unlimited e-mail support and Voki classroom tutorials. There are also no ads in the classroom site, whereas the original Voki is supported by some advertising. However, Voki Classroom is not free; Voki Classroom costs $29.95/year ($2.50/month) for a 1 year subscription or $44.95/2 years ($1.87/month) for a 2 year subscription. Voki Classroom is available at http://www.voki.com/products.php


Literacy and Technology?
Voki is a wonderful Web 2.0 tool for helping students develop their literacy skills in a variety of ways. Voki could be used as a pre-reading activity, specifically for developing phonetic awareness (i.e. hear, identify and manipulate sounds in words). Voki could also be used as a post-reading activity, specifically for summarizing (i.e. summarize or paraphrase the major points of a story after reading it), retelling (i.e. tell what they remember about a story), sharing (share information with others about books they have read or heard), discussing (i.e. discuss favorite parts or elements of a story), evaluating (i.e. form opinions, make judgments, and develop ideas after reading), or creating projects/artifacts (i.e. create a project or artifact as a culminating activity that illustrates what they have learned). Some possible Voki literacy activities could include (Stephens & Rubincam, 2010):

• After creating a Voki, students can record short poems, interview questions, answers etc. for assignments or assessment.
• A Voki could serve as a tool for students to record and listen to themselves reading a short passage to work on pronunciation and word fluency. This could be especially beneficial for E.S.L./E.L.L students.
• Vokis can be used as a “secret self” by students to discuss issues and ideas if they are shy or need help.

Voki is content friendly and can be integrated into any curriculum area. Fun, interesting, and engaging, Voki is the type of assignment students would not mind spending time on. In addition to being user- and viewer-friendly, Voki has the "ability to share 'voki-videos' with others (students, teachers, parents, other classes)" through e-mail as well as embedding in blogs, webpages, and social networking sites ("Voki," 2011). Voki provides a new method of student presentations; by preparing a Voki creation, students must carefully organize their thoughts ("Voki," 2011).

More ideas?
Literacy Resources on edublogs provides a list of suggestions for innovating a literacy classroom with Voki. Their suggestions are provided below ("Voki for digital," 2009):

1. Create an avatar for a character in a book and tell us something they would say.
2. Create a series of characters from a book, e.g. the wolf and the three little pigs, and tell us the story form thier point of view. It would have to be short because the characters only speak for 1 minute.
3. Put together a 1 minute speech about a favorite book, trying to persuade somebody to do something etc. and get a voki character to speak it. This would be particularly good for children who are reluctant to stand up and talk in front of others.
4. Get a Voki to speak five or so words that you want to learn how to spell and leave gaps after you have said them to give you time to write the word down. Use the Voki to practice your spellings.
5. If you use wikis with children, they could produce a Voki to go on their page to introduce themselves. In fact they could be quite useful when you might not want to include real images of children.
6. The children could produce characters to read out poetry that they have written. These could be shared with a link/penpal school.
7. Tell a story in five Vokis – a bit like "tell a story in six words" or "tell a story in five frames."
8. Explore different points of view from a story. Instead of Voices in the Park it could be Vokis in the Park. Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne tells the story of going to the park from four characters viewpoints.

Voki's website also has a collection of lesson plans that include thoughts for using Voki in the classroom. Ideas include all subjects and levels from primary school to the university classroom (Oddcast Inc., 2011). Voki Lesson Plans

References

Oddcast Inc. (2011). Voki. Retrieved from http://www.voki.com/

Oddcast Inc. (2011). Voki lesson plan database. Retrieved from http://www.voki.com/lesson_plans.php

Stephens, D., & Rubincam, N. (2010). Literacy - voki. Retrieved from http://innovations2010unco.pbworks.com/w/page/28129621/Literacy- Voki

Voki. (2011). Retrieved from http://teachweb2.wikispaces.com/Voki

Voki for digital storytelling part 1. (2009, January 20). Retrieved from http://literacyresourcesandideas.edublogs.org/2009/01/20/voki-for-digital-storytelling-part-1/