One of my personal goals for this class has been to learn about technology and to find ways that I could apply the technology in a classroom setting with my second graders. As I read through the chapter on social networking tools, I thought that it would be fun to create an avatar using Voki. I'm sure that there are many ways that people have found to use avatars, but one of the ways that I thought I could apply avatars with my students is by letting them create characters for stories that they've written in class. Once the avatars are created, then the students can type their stories into the computer. They can choose to record their voice as they read their stories or they can choose to have one of the computerized voices read the text for you. I could see how this format would be beneficial to students because they'd be able to playback their story as many times as they needed. They could hear what they've typed and then go back to make corrections as needed. I think that my second graders would be less resistant to editing their work if they were able to use this tool to help them. I think the kids would also find the avatars highly engaging and not threatening. When I tried this with my daughter she was having such a good time that she was motivated to keep on writing so that she'd be able to see her avatar talk even more!

The standards that this tool addresses are: 1(a,c); 2(a,b,d); 3(a,b,c,d); 5(a,b,c)