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LIST OF AVATAR CREATORS FOR EDUCATION

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Can you match the avatar style with the websites below?

Here are my top 5 favourite (Flash-based) websites for creating student avatars. Creating avatars allows students to include personal digital representations of themselves for online or in digital materials without relinquishing any privacy. Plus they are fun to create and a kid-friendly addition to any project, presentation or learning material.

1. Nintendo Wii - Who doesn't love creating a Mii!

2. Lego - A class favourite but try "snipping" only the heads and shoulders to avoid "lightsabers" and other Stars Wars© paraphernalia

3. Manga - perhaps better suited for students 11+

4. Bitstrips or BitstripsforSchools.com - Now a Facebook app but a popular choice as all Ontario students have freeaccess to Bitstrips for Schools.

5. Dopple Me - Another favourite!

+1 Bonus - Voki - Why not add your voice to an avatar too!

It should come as no surprise that students love creating them and they are great as signatures for wikis, blogs, documents, websites etc. I find them especially useful in Voice Thread or other online sites or games that offer the option to upload a picture. Remember that blank is always an option but a cartoon avatar is fun and safer than a photo. Use the "snipping tool" or another screenshot tool to take a .jpg (or other picture file) of your avatar to share in other sites. I keep a .jpgs of cartoon avatars in my Dropbox account ready to be used in projects or uploaded to sites. Now if only those the avatar creation sites for The Simpsons and Diary of a Wimpy Kid start working again...

P.S. Did you guess them all? Perhaps you will have to visit each site to find the answer. While you are there, go ahead and create+save an avatar of yourself too! Consider it your professional development for the day! 🙂 Below is an avatar of one sad little lad in our house with the current states of the TFC, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Blue Jays this year! "Maybe they will win next year Dad!" I am crossing my fingers for him!

Cheers,

Anthony

By achuter * Posted in creativity, digital citizenship, educational technology, software

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My top 5 Avatar creation sites for students

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Can you match the avatar style with the websites below? Here are my top 5 favourite (Flash-based) websites for creating student avatars. Creating avatars allows students to include personal digital representations of themselves for online or in digital materials without relinquishing any privacy.

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LIST OF AVATAR CREATORS FOR EDUCATION

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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This is a web tool that allows you to easily create speaking characters and customize them the way you want before sharing them with others

This web tool allows you to first design a human figure then add animal parts to it before you go wild. It is so much fun for kids

DoppleMe is a cool tool that students can use to create avatars to use in the virtual world

This is another cool tool to use to create avatars. It provides different styles and backgrounds

As its name indicates this platform lets you create avatars to use in blogs, and forums. It requires a sign up

This is an awesome tool for students to use to create clay versions of themselves.

Toy Creator is a tool to create toys and use them in other websites as avatars

8- Wimpy Yourself
This tool is similar to Clay yourself except it allows you create wimpy versions of yourself and not clay ones

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8 Great Avatar Creation Tools for Teachers

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This is a web tool that allows you to easily create speaking characters and customize them the way you want before sharing them with others This web tool allows you to first design a human figure then add animal parts to it before you go wild.

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LIST OF AVATAR CREATORS FOR EDUCATION

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This past week I moved my students in to the blogosphere to start participating in the great conversation. One of the big things we talked about however was privacy and keeping all personal information and images off of their blogs. So I had them create an Avatar to represent them online.

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LIST OF AVATAR CREATORS FOR EDUCATION

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LIST OF AVATAR CREATORS FOR EDUCATION

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Every year as my class begin to create their online blogs they always want some type of unique avatar to represent themselves. After a long talk about he dangers of an online presence and why not to use their real name, birthday and image of themselves, I point them to the following safe list of...

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LIST OF AVATAR CREATORS FOR EDUCATION

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Avatar creator Meez is back in the news this week, but there are dozens more avatar creation tools gunning for this market. Today we attempt an overview of that market: please add more suggestions in the comment section.

Weblin- Create an avatar and use it as your virtual self within web pages in real-time, interacting with other Weblin users who share the same interests.

Meez.com- Create a 3D animated avatar for export directly to most web profiles, blogs, etc.

Second Life- Use this extremely popular virtual world to do just about anything, but first, you have to create your avatar. Here, avatars can be customized almost entirely, with plenty of room to create a most accurate likeness of yourself.

Mypictr- Use any image and resize, crop, customize, and export it to many other web 2.0 social networking sites and profiles, like Facebook, and Digg.

Gizmoz- Create, animate, and share photorealistic, great looking avatars, and even video clips featuring them. The animation and overall look of the avatar is sourced from a real picture, actually ending up almost like a personal CGI generator.

Mii Editor- Create your own "Mii", the avatars characteristic of the Nintendo Wii.

Simpsons Avatar Maker- "Simpsonize yourself" by creating an avatar in the classic style of the Simpsons.

Gickr- Instantaneously create an animate gif file by either uploading your own pictures, or sourcing from Flickr.

Gravatar- Create an 80x80 pixel avatar by uploading an image which is then associated with your email address, appearing on Gravatar enabled websites and blogs without additional effort.

IMVU- Create and dress up your personal avatar which can then be used in their virtual chat-rooms or with their visual messenger client.

fix8- Create, animate, and dress up your avatar primarily through interfacing with your webcam in order to capture real movement and look.

Zwinky- Customize your personal cartoon avatar and share it across the web.

Digibody's Caricature Maker- Use the components of a caricature to create your unique caricature avatar.

Faketown- A pixel-art, avatar based, MMORPG, similar to second life, but much less realistically.

DoppelMe- Simply assemble an apparently "hand drawn" avatar image for use anywhere.

SitePal- A pay-based 3D, animated avatar creation service aimed towards business looking to create a personal presence on their website.

Gaia- Another avatar-based MMORPG, this one, anime-styled.

imbee- The social network for young people includes an avatar creator featuring images of animals from the National Geographic Kids library.

Myrl- A social network based on avatars in the "metaverse", supposedly using avatars to connect with the web by virtue of collaboration. Close to it's beta launch, this definitely looks like something to keep an eye out for.

Kaneva- Yet another avatar-based virtual world, Kaneva looks like a valid Second Life alternative.

Blogscoped- Chat with others in this virtual, visual, chatroom, which makes efficient use of user avatars. While it may not appear to be that "web 2.0" it uses PHP, MySQL, Ajax, and the Google API, which effectively categorize it as so.

MojiKan- A somewhat odd MMORPG for customizable 3D pet avatars.

Frenzoo- Customize and use one of their well-designed avatars in chats as well as a variety of other environments.

Clickbeurs (Dutch)- Create an avatar and apply for a job through virtually chatting with potential employers, a somewhat odd idea.

Mr. Picassohead- Create stunning, Picasso-like paintings which are easily transformed into avatars.

Whyrobbierocks- Create a "stereotypical" avatar for use on various social networking sites, IMs, etc.

Weeworld- Interact with some quite uniquely designed avatars in a virtual world primarily based on chats and mini-games.

Voki- Create an avatar, record your voice, and share. A possible alternative to something like Sitepal, but geared more towards a less-business-oriented audience.

Honorable Mention

While all of the sites (except for a couple, added for their significantly customizable avatars and creation engines) above are primarily based upon the principle of avatar creation and customization, I'd like to quickly mention the importance of your "avatar", or probably more aptly named character in many popular MMORPGs. The likes of which are probably most easily recognized in games like World of Warcraft.

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Avatars Everywhere: 27 of the Best Avatar Makers

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Avatar creator Meez is back in the news this week, but there are dozens more avatar creation tools gunning for this market. Today we attempt an overview of that market: please add more suggestions in the comment section.