My Vision of Voki

I am really excited by the concept of Voki's and what they can achieve as a tool to engage students. They will be a great tool for the everyday classroom to add variety and fun to a lesson. There are several different examples of these types of Voki's on blogs of my peers which can be found through these links:
http://christiesictblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/creating-voki.html
http://johannapettett.blogspot.com/2010/04/power-of-powerpoint.html
http://learningjourneycaro.blogspot.com/2010/03/using-voki-for-educational-purposes.html

I also feel that they have immense value as a tool to make certain students feel included and valued. By this I am referring to students that due to health reasons or other factors, are removed from the classroom situation and lose access to their teacher and peers for an extended period of time. These students can still feel in touch with their teacher and classmates if a blog is set up with Voki's designed to look like their teacher/classmates along with that individuals voice. I have posted an example of such a Voki at the end of this blog. This type of project is a multi layered learning experience. Not only is the absent child receiving support and sharing in valuable learning experiences, but all students will be required to learn how to engage with the ICT programs, and will be motivated by the relate-create-donate concept. This concept, as mentioned previously on this blog, was conceived by Kearsley & Shneiderman (1999) as the process of Engagement Theory. The basic principle of this theory is that students are engaged through activities which provide the opportunity to use active cognitive processes through problem-solving, creating, reasoning, evaluating and decision making. Students 'Relate' by working with their peers in groups, 'Create' through purposeful learning activities of their own choosing, and then 'Donate' by producing a useful product that suits the needs of the third party.

I also think that students with learning challenges such as aspergers, ADD or ADHD would greatly benefit from having a Voki embedded in a blog, powerpoint or other IT medium, that has been designed specifically as their personal support tool. As Stephan Bauer (2004) highlights, students with these challenges learn best from visual supports, and they also require communication that uses very simple, positive language that is devoid of sarcasm or other inferences, and allows them time to process the verbal dialogue and respond. Voki's are designed to be used for only short statements, and can be played at the request of the audience, so are ideal for this type of communication.



References

Bauer, S. (2004) adapted from Thoughts for management in the school, source http://members.ozemail.com.au/~rbmitch/Asperger14.htm

Kearsley, G. & Shneiderman, B. (1999) Engagement theory: a framework for technology-based teaching and learning, Version 4/5/1999, Sourced http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm