Avatars

http://creativelearners.wikispaces.com/home

A great way to start students off with an online presence is to create an avatar and add it to your wiki or website front page at the beginning of the year, such as in these examples.

http://room32010.wikispaces.com/

One of the teachers I worked with today wanted to use  Build Your Wildself

Students can create their own "Wildself'. To save it as a picture file you can either do a screen capture on a Mac or Windows using Prt Scn...or Click 'I'm done'  then click on Get a Wild Desktop. Do a right click on the next screen and select Save as...

  Create a table on your web site or wiki and insert all of the avatars. Later on in the year you might link each child's avatar to their own online page.
Click here to see different types of avatars that your students can make.

Hero Machine Version 2.5

Hero Machine Version 2.5 is another Superhero site. This one is very comprehenisive and offers many choices. I particularly like how you can add a companion.

There is also four choices of bodies.







Once you have added all the parts and features to your superhero then you will need to take a screen capture
 Update 3 November 2009
Jeff the Designer left a comment about my post and told me that HeroMachine Version 3.0 is in Alpha mode, it looks amazing, heaps more options. Kids are going to have fun with this one!

Voki - Animated Avatar

A Voki is an animated avatar.







You can customise the avatar's look.

You can add voice by typing in some text and a computer generated voice will read it out, or record your own voice using the microphone.
You can add backgrounds.





And  you can publish to your blog or wiki.
You can also send to an email address and a phone
You will need to set up an account.


Get a Voki now!

More Superhero Avatars

Following on from my blogpost about The Hero Factory, there is another Superhero site. Marvel has their own website for creating superheroes.
Click Begin and then create your base.

Then go through all of the tabs to create your superhero.


To save the Superhero you need to set up an account or you can click Download and then take a screen capture.

Kid Friendly Avatar Maker - My Avatar Editor

When you show My Avatar Editor to children they recognise it straight away as it looks like the avatars (known as Mii) you can make on a Wii. It is very easy to use.
Type in your name and creator name.
Choose Gender,
Choose colours.
Then click on the buttons below to personalise your avatar.
Once you have finished click on the the Save button (the first button)

There are several save options.
I recommend using the Export option as that allows you save it as a Jpeg. You can also select the Pictures size and a background colour.

The Hero Factory - Create a Superhero avatar

Kids love to create avatars and what could be better than turning yourself into a 'Superhero'!
The Hero Factory has a range of looks and accessories to create your Superhero.


These can then be downloaded and used as avatars. You will need to crop them before they can use them for that purpose.

A name is generated once you have finished your creation. Mine is 'Whipped Nine Tails'

I could see these characters influencing writing. Students can create them and build their own individual Superhero bios. Students could then work collaboratively together to create their own Superhero world!







R rating: None

Mini-Mizer and Weemees: Create characters

When I was looking for ways to create character graphics for inserting into Inspiration, Kidspiration or Smart Ideas, I was very aware of finding something to use that was 'free'. I used WeeWorld to create character Weemees, and took screen captures of them to place into the diagram I was creating.


I came across Mini-mizer from 'Reasonably Clever' which creates Lego style characters, but there was adult content, so I put a tweet out on Twitter and received a link to the 'Kid Friendly version of Mini-Mizer'. It has a lot less graphics but you can still create great characters or Avatars.
Again you will still need to take screen captures to copy these images.



R rating: R13

Weemee graphic signature for emails

Weemees make great avatars that can be used to represent you instead of a photo. You can also create a Weemee graphic signature like mine by creating a Weemee and then use the Export feature to create an email signature.

How to create a Weemee

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

Creating Avatars

I have had a teacher ask me if there is site where children can create their own avatars without having to register their names etc. Generally you do have to register but with some sites you can get away with doing a screen capture.

First of all 'What is an avatar?'
An avatar is a computer user’s representation of himself or herself.

If you have a yahoo account you can make avatars where you can copy and paste the code into your Blog site, here is mine!
But this one is not really suitable for children, great for adults. Then I searched specifically for children and found this site Reasonably Clever Block Head Iconiser

To use this picture you need to take a screen capture (Windows users, press Print Screen button on your keyboard, paste into Paint, click and drag around the part you want and copy/paste it into the programme you want to use) (Mac users press Shift, Control, Apple, 4, click and drag around the part you want and paste it into the programme you want to use).

Another programme called Build your Wildself has students creating themselves and then adding animal body parts to finish off as a Wild Self. Once students had created their “wild self”, click on Get a Wild desktop, right click it and select Save Image As and you will have a copy of the avatar.

Kerpoof a site I have reviewed previously in this blog allows you to make avatars but you need to be registered. Once you have registered, go to My Stuff and create your avatar.

Again there is no download feature but you can do a screen capture before you click Save.

And then there is DoppelMe you can create your avatar and when you have finished you can right click, select Copy and paste into the programme of your choice.

Finally Weemee. There are lots of choices to make changes to the avatar, you can screen capture it or register to get the code to insert into your blogs.

Teachers will need to try these out themselves to find out which is the best for their class situation.

Avatars

I have had a teacher ask me if there is site where children can create their own avatars without having to register their names etc. Generally you do have to register but with some sites you can get away with doing a screen capture.

First of all 'What is an avatar?'
An avatar is a computer user’s representation of himself or herself.

If you have a yahoo account you can make avatars where you can copy and paste the code into your Blog site, here is mine!
But this one is not really suitable for children, great for adults. Then I searched specifically for children and found this site Reasonably Clever Block Head Iconiser

To use this picture you need to take a screen capture (Windows users, press Print Screen button on your keyboard, paste into Paint, click and drag around the part you want and copy/paste it into the programme you want to use) (Mac users press Shift, Control, Apple, 4, click and drag around the part you want and paste it into the programme you want to use).

Another programme called Build your Wildself has students creating themselves and then adding animal body parts to finish off as a Wild Self. Once students had created their “wild self”, click on Get a Wild desktop, right click it and select Save Image As and you will have a copy of the avatar.

Kerpoof a site I have reviewed previously in this blog allows you to make avatars but you need to be registered. Once you have registered, go to My Stuff and create your avatar.

Again there is no download feature but you can do a screen capture before you click Save.

And then there is DoppelMe you can create your avatar and when you have finished you can right click, select Copy and paste into the programme of your choice.

Finally Weemee. There are lots of choices to make changes to the avatar, you can screen capture it or register to get the code to insert into your blogs.

Teachers will need to try these out themselves to find out which is the best for their class situation.