A Voki World

Anxiety seems to be the key word I hear from parents over and over these days. As a grade 4 teacher, it is very concerning to think that my students have anxiety over the work they are doing in my classroom. Although one could discuss the causes and reasons for anxiety in children forever, the truth of the matter is that anxiety exists in students at a younger and younger age, and as a teacher it is my responsibility to help reduce this anxiety when I can. This video called Let's Voki demonstrates that oral testing can become fun when students use Voki. No longer do they have to be nervous, rather they can focus on their learning rather than on their nerves. From a teaching perspective, students could create a voki for homework and when students are asked to practice their skip counting for homework, they could speak into a microphone and record their skip counting rather than have to stand in front of the class to demonstrate their learning. This would be easy for the teacher to mark and also fun for the student to create.

Enter the Voki world. Voki is a Web 2.0 tool that allows students to make an avatar who is able to speak on their behalf. Allowing the students to use an avatar in their place for oral presentations is an obvious solution for those kids who do not feel comfortable in front of the classroom. By typing or speaking into the website, the are able to hide behind this tool while still expressing their ideas.

Another wonderful reason Voki is a great classroom tool is for editing. During the writing process it is very hard to find enough time to properly edit the work of your students. There is only so much time during a period and teachers can spend night after night correcting their student's writing. Using a Voki character to edit work is a wonderful and fun solution for students. Students are able to type their story into the site and allow the avatar to read what has been written.

Watching the video from Mr. Young's class it is so easy to see the very important benefits of having someone (or an avatar) express the students ideas orally. It is so common for students to forget periods, commas, misspell words or write a piece that truly doesn't make sense. This tool allows for students to catch these mistakes as the avatar reads the work as it is written. Students can then log back into their work and edit what they have written.

Not only would this be useful for a teacher and students, but also for parents who do not have time to proof read their child's work. Similarly an administrator could write up the morning announcements and post them for teachers to play during their classes at their leisure. It is a fun, interactive and exciting way to express ideas.

This program is particularly useful for teachers and students as it can be integrated into the classroom program with ease. The site provides many lesson plans and Voki's that have already been created and can be embedded on other sites. This requires purchasing the Voki website for approximately 30 dollars a year, however the benefits are well worth the money. Teachers can register their students on the site and assignments can be given through this portal. Students can save their projects under this account for teachers to view and assess.

Voki has a blog that is written to update its users about changes made to the program and other interesting information worth following. Their website is the place to get started!

Voki was voted #9 in the top ten web 2.0 tools for young learners. " this is more than just something cute that can be embedded into a Website... What if the Voki was reading a list of spelling words? What if it was speaking another language? What if I had a website that had a Voki embedded to tell my kids what was going on so that the one's that couldn't read could hear it? What if kids used Voki to say something important" (The Journal). Of course, it is also warned in this article that "as with all tools, there has to be a task and a deadline" let them play with it once, she said, and then have them get to work (The Journal).


Bibliography:

www.voki.com
Riedel, C. The Journal Top 10 Web 2.0 Tools for Young Learners. Available  02/02/09