Voki for Digital Storytelling

Get a Voki now!

It is really easy to create a Voki! I just made a second one here in less than 2 minutes, and I didn't even need a microphone.  Voki doesn't require students to sign in to create or save their creations, but there are both free accounts and paid teacher accounts that allow users to register and better manage the Vokis they create.  It's a simple program to use and wouldn't require much training - students follow the prompts to choose features, select a background, and then record the story.  The software does the rest of the work!

My students practice Digital Storytelling, and I find that they often don't feel comfortable with using their own voice.  It's important to me that they practice this anyway, and the students can sometimes be stubborn.  Voki could be an option for those students, as it lets you either record a voice or use text-to-speech.

I'm still not convinced that Voki would be the right tool for my classroom, mainly because the Digital Storytelling project is multimedia and requires students to add their own photos and videos.  I think it would be a powerful tool in a number of other classes. One classroom where I see great application is Social Studies.  I would love to see students create historical avatars and record their stories to share with classmates.

This site gives more information about Voki, including an example of how it can be used in a foreign language classroom.