T1- Blogger and Avatars

Blogging is a simple way to begin one's sphere of influence on the web. Its popularity is a testament to that. Blogger, with its affiliation to Google, is one of the more popular ones- but there are tons of different blogging sites out there. Blogger does have some nice customization that other blogs don't have, but also seems to lack other features. Like in all areas, different services have different provisions, and finding what best suits you is always part of the equation.

In addition to this blog, I've also created the Wyatt Chapel Cemetery. A blog for the ongoing project had been requested from part of the Prairie View A&M faculty. Being one of the few experienced in this area, I volunteered to set it up.

The only difficult part, per-say, was that blogger decided to have an error today... and wouldn't allow me to setup the blog for several hours. Exciting.

With multi-media, students can use a blog to catalog their learning and efforts and what they are doing with their class time. Student's love playing with multi-media already, but sometimes they get a little lost playing a bit too much, or have a difficult time showing what they've really been doing. So, tell me about your difficulties and your successes, and upload you work-in-progress. View other's blogs and consume, critique (nicely), and produce... much the same way we are on here.

As far as creating a blog, they can be a very useful learning tool, and an interactive way to reflect and display a student's thoughts and progress in a class. However, when searching for blogs, things can be a little more concerning. There are alot of blogs out there. A LOT. With blogs normally being so easily creatable, widespread, and free, the issue of quality over quantity can easily be an issue. Quality aside, there are also plenty of blogs in areas unrelated to content areas, daily dairies of people often consisting of rantings or frustrations, and plenty on inappropriate topics.

Using blogs in the classroom can be a great success, but it would likely be best to present the students with good examples to explore, rather than letting them find a multitude of various ones on their own.


Avatars:
Voki is a sight allowing users to create a 3d flash-based avatar for free. Personally, I wasn't too impressed with Voki's visual customizations. Sure it's 'flash'y, but that doesn't mean visually its worthwhile. There weren't very many choices for actual customization, only small edits on the defaults available. However, the feature of a talking avatar is rather unique. This is really what set's Vokis apart from other avatars.

The origin of the term avatar is a religious term. The term means a manifestation or incarnation of a deity. Digitally, the term is somewhat parallel. It is the user's representation of themselves normally used in online communities. It seems there are now two types of avatars. These newer ones consisting of flash applets like Voki and other similar services and the old school more static avatars. Most avatars are not a flash-based applet, but rather just a small image used to represent someone digitally (commonly used on forums as well as other places). Why the giraffe above? I like giraffes, and I thought it might get your attention.

Avatars, even on the net, are not a new concept. They have been in use since the 90s. However, they have recently become much more popular in the past few years. I assume part of this is due to the video game market. All three current video game systems allow users to create their own avatars. To the above right is an example created on the Xbox 360 built-in software. Below is an example of Spock, created on the Wii's built in Mii software.


- Voki: Low customization, but useful when desiring a 3d flash avatar that can speak.
- Meez: Flash based 3d avatar with lots of customization, but minus the ability to speak. Some customizations require using 'points' and a few actually require purchase. When choosing to export it, final product is converted into a gif image file.
- Yahoo! Avatars: Flash based 2d avatar with tons of customization. Currently unable to use the avatar for anything other than Yahoo services or Facebook.

Tools one&two are pretty simple for people already well-versed in this. Although, I get the idea that these two things might only count as one tool... so... a baker's 11 then?