Voki is a website where you can design and add a voice to an
avatar. The basic package is free but is quite limited. There is a package
called Voki classroom which comes with a monthly subscription and is designed
for educational use.
Voki classroom acts as a virtual learning environment. It
can be used to design entire lessons and can be used interactively by students.
A teacher can set up a lesson and register pupils so they can view it. The
teacher can also set homework tasks which the pupils can complete using voki’s
which are marked and assessed on the website. The teacher also uploads a lesson
plan which details learning outcomes and a breakdown of topics to be covered. Other
than this I don’t fully understand what else Voki classroom actually does. I
have trawled through the website and read the getting started guide but am
still not much wiser. I’m not sure what kind of teaching this is aimed at: primary aged children? University students?
or distance learning settings? I struggle to see the point of Voki classroom
other than an aid for distance learning courses.
The basic package doesn’t really have any educational use as
it is so limited but the Voki classroom package which is designed for teaching
obviously has an educational use. However I think that Voki has overestimated
it’s abilities to replace a real classroom.
