Sunday, November 29, 2009
Voki Avatars
To create my avatar above, i used the free online service http://www.voki.com/ which enables people to personalise an avatar and post it to a blog or send via email. The value of these avatars in presenting educational direction and information is limitless, and they are so easy to make!
The use of avatars in education enables learning managers (teachers) to make lesson delivery more engaging for the digital native students. Learning managers may create one or many avatars and use them in blogs, wikis or during lessons to introduce a topic, provide knowledge or direction for an activity. Students can create their own avatars to use in online discussions, record a speech for practice or to present an assignment with a sense of anonymity.
To create my avatar i first created an account at http://www.voki.com/. The following steps to create the avatar where pretty simple, choose the type of avatar you wish to create be it an animal, person, anime etcetera. To the right of the avatar are the controls, by flicking around and working out how to make changes, I was able to easily produce my above avatar. However adjusting things like eye colour, size of mouth and hair colour required a little bit of clicking around and working out how to change certain things.
The next step was to create speech for my avatar. There are options to record your voice or to type text to be spoken and select the accent and gender of the voice to be used. I chose to use one of the pre-recorded voices existing as I haven't the means to record my own voice at present.
This process was quite quick and enjoyable. I do believe that this is an ICT application that I will use regularly married with blogs or wikis to provide an engaging and enriching learning program for my students.
Something to think about:
Imagine using an avatar to aid delivery of educational instruction or knowledge while you are away sick or at a PD day. Just think how much students would enjoy having the familiarity of your voice or a recognisable avatar to provide them with direction while you are absent and how the substitute teacher would appreciate the assistance!
Friday, November 27, 2009
RSS Aggregator
Before the course Managing E-learning, I was oblivious to what an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Aggregator was, what it is used for and how useful it can be. To be honest I was a bit intimidated, thinking that this would be some complex program that only ICT experts could possibly know about. I was pleased to find I was completely wrong.
Of course to familiarise myself with what an RSS Aggregator was, I Googled the term. Wikipedia (2009) described an aggregator as a web application that collates web content from multiple sites into one simple reader. The web content may include blog entries, news headlines and podcasts to name a few (Wikipedia, 2009). Put simply, instead of searching for updates, an RSS Aggregator brings the updates to you in one easy to read account. This saves time searching a number of websites for the latest news or blog update.
The RSS Aggregator that I chose to use is GOOGLE Reader as I had an existing Google account. To set up my account i simply logged in and began subscribing to the blogs of my fellow course members. Once I had subscribed I could immediately see their posts in an easy to read format.
This application would be very useful for a learning manager (teacher) and students to use. In a secondary school context, a learning manager may present course material and weblinks via blog, encourage students to create their own blogs for collaborating and reflecting on their learning, and subscribing to newscasts relevant to their subject. The RSS Aggregator would be useful for the learning manager and students to subscribge to the blogs of their peers and check for updates all in one account. This simple application would provide a fast and efficient means for tracking course material, blogs, news headlines and podcasts without wasted time searching for these updates.
Reference
Wikipedia. (2009, November 27). Aggregator. Retrieved November 27, 2009 from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregator
Of course to familiarise myself with what an RSS Aggregator was, I Googled the term. Wikipedia (2009) described an aggregator as a web application that collates web content from multiple sites into one simple reader. The web content may include blog entries, news headlines and podcasts to name a few (Wikipedia, 2009). Put simply, instead of searching for updates, an RSS Aggregator brings the updates to you in one easy to read account. This saves time searching a number of websites for the latest news or blog update.
The RSS Aggregator that I chose to use is GOOGLE Reader as I had an existing Google account. To set up my account i simply logged in and began subscribing to the blogs of my fellow course members. Once I had subscribed I could immediately see their posts in an easy to read format.
This application would be very useful for a learning manager (teacher) and students to use. In a secondary school context, a learning manager may present course material and weblinks via blog, encourage students to create their own blogs for collaborating and reflecting on their learning, and subscribing to newscasts relevant to their subject. The RSS Aggregator would be useful for the learning manager and students to subscribge to the blogs of their peers and check for updates all in one account. This simple application would provide a fast and efficient means for tracking course material, blogs, news headlines and podcasts without wasted time searching for these updates.
Reference
Wikipedia. (2009, November 27). Aggregator. Retrieved November 27, 2009 from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregator
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