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Avatar Chat

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Aloha all,
Here's my o wau topic for this week. We all know the power of the Avatar and their popularity with our learners from our A`o Makua courses and I know we have discussed ways to incorporate them into our `Ike Hawai`i classes as well. Well, I can't take credit for finding this resource. Our resident Avatar expert a.k.a. Christy told me to check it out because Avatars can now chat. So please join me in finding out what other engaging and motivating feats these amazing characters can do to help us provide meaningful learning experiences for all our students. You can read about OddCast and their AvatarSpace or go to their Web site and test out some of these features. I'm hoping that this may provide us with a motivating way to get students, in both programs, to participate in some cooperative learning and sharing. Let me know what you think and if you feel this would be a valuable application to use.
Mahalo - look forward to reading your responses!
Kelly

Comments

Komarey said…
Thanks for sharing the information on Avatar chat. I can see the possibilities for use in my class. Mainly, a side project that requires them to build their own avatar and have a virtual Ho`ike to demonstrate what what they've learned. Most students are shy and are discouraged with public speaking, but if they could build a character that can convey their message, maybe they're more likely to present to their peers.

I played around and created my own avatar to chat with their robot. I attempted to type out some Hawaiian words, but the spelling and spaces have to be tweeked a little to get an accurate pronounciation.

Mahalo Kelly for sharing.
October 9, 2008 at 3:44 PM
Clinton said…
Mahalo for sharing this new spin on chat. I think this is a lot better than Blackboard's chat feature. I liked how the avatars spoke what you typed, though as Komarey said it has difficulty with Hawaiian words. I think on a small scale it would be useful and even fun for students who are able to meet synchronously. Though I can see it being pretty chaotic if there are more than a few people in the room at the same time. Mahalo for sharing.
October 9, 2008 at 4:39 PM
Dorothy said…
Mahalo for sharing this Kelly. I enjoyed viewing the Oddcast demo as well as go into the chat room to experience it. Luckily, when I went in, Christy was also on at the same time, so we were chatting for a little while. As Clinton mentioned, definitely a much better chat option than Blackboard. It was cool to discover the tools, how to move the character, etc. Komarey, great idea on integrating this with our ho'ike. I think the kids would really enjoy it. I was lazy, so I just chose a generic avatar to enter the room and found myself with a twin. :)
October 10, 2008 at 8:13 AM
Christy said…
The goal of the Oddcast Avatar Space is really about marketing but I can see how it would be applicable as a social space for students. I didn't realize that it was text-to-speech though so that's not so useful for practicing language. I'm not sure of the cost but Google Lively may also be an option and something we could research further.
http://www.lively.com/html/landing.html
October 10, 2008 at 8:25 AM
Anonymous said…
Cool tool. :) I haven't had the chance to try it out & would like to test it with other avatars in the room too. It has great potential for the `Ike Hi classes & A`o Makua. I can see it as an insentive almost, for the HS students to do a group chat to create their own avatar & see those of their classmates. This would provide another option for our language students to converse with one another. We know from this past course that the students who tried to do a group chat in Connect had many technological issues. This may aleviate this. Although we'll have to see how the pronunciaton would work out. Anybody wanna meet me there? Thanks Kel!
October 10, 2008 at 10:37 AM
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