voki: create talking characters

Sharon Thornton- Instructional Technology

Voki: Create Talking Characters

Navigate to http://www.voki.com Your students can create a custom avatar and type or record text to make it speak. To get started: Create an account. This will be your teacher classroom account that your students will also use to log into so make the password something easy to type and remember.

Note: You don’t have to have an account to create a Voki, but you won’t be able to save it or get any kind of website URL or code to put these on your blog or wiki.

Now you will see a screen like this where it shows you are logged in.

Have students login with this same information.

Now it will take you

through a wizard where

you will create your

avatar character.

Start with Customize

your character.

Click on Create your own wiki.

http://www.voki.com/


Choose a character type

Choose Male or female

Select your character.

Now click on the hair and lip

icons to change hair and mouth.

When you are finished, click the

green done button at the

bottom

Now click on the clothing

and bling tabs to add

clothes and jewelry.

Click done when you are

finished with your

character


Now you are ready to make your Voki Character speak

Important Note: If students plan to embed these in their Gaggle blogs, make sure to tell them not to record personal information- that means no last names please.

Last option: You can use your phone to record a message for your character to speak. Click on the green Done button when you are finished adding a message. You can add backgrounds if you like as well.

Let’s make your character

speak.

If you want the voice to be your

actual voice, click on the

microphone and then connect a

headset with microphone to

your computer.

You can also type a message

and it will read it for you, but it

won’t have your own voice.

Note: You can choose the voice

that it will use.

You could also upload an MP3

file you already have recorded

and exported in Audacity.


Important: Save your Voki- Make sure to save your Voki so you can access it later.

Name your Voki and click Save.

Send your Voki to a friend or yourself via email.

To save your Voki so you can

view it later or edit it, you must

click on Publish button to save it.

Click on the Send to a friend

There is also an edit link here for

you to go back and edit this Voki

later.


How to see all of your and all of your student’s Voki characters

Click on the Send to a Friend tab

Fill in your name and your friend’s

email address.

Students can send this to themselves

using their Gaggle email account.

Click on the My Voki tab to see all of your Voki’s-

including those created by your students.

You can see all of mine below here.


Some Ideas for integration into the curriculum Students can:

Explain how to solve a math problem or scientific process.

Orally share their “writing pieces.”

Create a “newscast” based on research or current news events.

Tell a story.

Record information from a research project as if “giving a lecture.”

Explain a concept such as metamorphosis

Describe properties of objects.

Discuss a concept such as the purpose of the 3 branches of the government.

As an “authentic” foreign language experience, students are writing, reading,

revising, and speaking to an audience.

Foreign language students can use Voki to speak “in character” for different role

play assignments.

To aid resource students, teacher can record oral pronunciation of vocabulary words

as a review-guide for upcoming assessments.

New! Voki for Education and Lesson Plans

Voki for Education- Visit the Teacher’s corner, see tips and directions.


Lesson Plans Data base

You can search for lesson plans by grade level and subject.


Optional: Embed your voki message in your blog or wiki. How to embed your voki character in your wiki or blog (except for Gaggle email- see those directions below) You can also email this to a friend.

If you are going to embed this to your blog or wiki- STOP and open that right now and login. Once you are logged into your site, you can return to these directions:

Click on Publish Your Voki.

It will take you to this screen.

You can choose the size of your Voki.

Grab code to put it on all the following social network sites such as eBlogger and Word press.

Get a general Javascript embed code.

Get the website URL to share.


Send Voki to your eBlogger Blog home page (on sidebar) or blog post.

This is two different views of what your Voki will look like in your blog

It will prompt you to enter

Your Blogger username

Blogger Password

Blog URL. I had to copy and paste the exact address of my blog since it automatically filled in a generic one.

Check Post to sidebar if want the Voki on your main blog page. Note: If you leave this unchecked, it will put it in a new blog post.

Click on the blue Post button.

This is what your Voki will look like posted to sidebar.


Note: If you are posting student Voki’s then I’d choose to post these in a blog post.

-Gaggle Email Blogs

How Students Embed their Voki Character into their Gaggle Blog Follow these steps once students have set up their blogs.

o Click to add a new Blog Entry

o Title your entry. Now click on the globe in the toolbar.

This is what your Voki will look like in a blog post. You can go to design mode in your dashboard and edit this post’s title or add text about your Voki.


Say Yes at the Security Information window if it pops up.

First copy the URL for you Voki that you

made (look in the Publish Your Voki

window.)

Paste this URL website. Right Click>paste or Press the Control then V key. Type a message like Welcome to my blog. Click on Insert Link button.

Click on the Update Blog button.

voki: create talking characters

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