Voki - Virtual Talking Avatar

I stumbled across a Voki on Mrs. Yollis' Classroom blog and although I was intrigued by the movement of the character I was on an unrelated mission and I did not give it much thought at that time. It was not until a short time later when I was pondering my next step in blogging that I was reminded of that little animated cat and returned to investigate. I was very surprised to learn that not only could this little orange guy wag his tail but he could also talk! This was definitely something I wanted on my blog.

I discovered a little speech bubble on the top of Mrs. Yollis' Voki which contained not only the word Voki but also a link to the Voki home page . I clicked the bubble and was taken directly to the Voki home page.  Here I found a wealth of information. I immediately learned that Voki was a free service that offered its users an opportunity to create customized avatars with voice options and the ability to publish and share with others. But perhaps the most exciting aspect that I discovered was that Voki was a web tool for education. Who would have thought that little orange cat could be fun and educational too! There was so much to delve into that for the time being I decided to just start with the basics and sign up for a regular Voki account.

Creating my Voki account was easy. After entering the usual required name, email, and password I was off and running.

“Create” is the first page Voki directs its users to.

Here users select a character from a wide range of options and customize it with clothing and accessories.  There is a variety of choice for backgrounds and the user can even select the color of their Voki player.  Users are limited only by their imagination!

Users can choose to select from preprogrammed voices or to record their own.  The text-to-speech option is especially convenient and was the one I chose to use.

Users are then directed to publish their new avatar.  Following the steps provided by the Voki website makes sharing your new creations with the online world slick and easy.

When I selected the character for my avatar it was with this blog in mind. I wanted to choose a figure that reflected a professional tone and if possible could look a little bit like myself. Although she is perhaps a few years younger I am happy with my first attempt at animating myself. It was fun to select an outfit and accessories. The background options were somewhat limited and I ended up settling for lockers instead of a library setting, however, I have since learned I could have uploaded a picture of my school library. The computer I used did not have a microphone so as I previously mentioned I used the text-to-speech feature. The hardest part of the whole process was choosing the message that my avatar would share.

I embedded my Voki in the top left corner of my blog.