PDF 
Do you know this person?
Do you know this person? Why yes, that’s me! It is my avatar and my pseudonym - murcha! (This avatar was created using picassohead)
__________________________________
In this challenge #4, we will look at the brain of the blog ie it’s author and that is YOU! What do you look like? Will I remember you next time you visit? How do I know it is you? Will you look the same everywhere in the cyberworld?
Avatars
Avatars are the digital identities or images that accompany your online presence – they can appear as a widget on the side of your blog and as a small avatar or gravatar next to the comments that you make on others’ blogs. Some bloggers are happy to have their actual photo, but others prefer a personification of themselves.
I would like you to meet my class (see the photo below). Do you recognize any of them? All my students have avatars made with a variety of tools. As they use them consistently and regularly, I know who they are.
Meet my Students
Let us have fun in this challenge and try at least one avatar making tools. Here are three sites that I like to use:-
- Picassoheads (cartoon style, simple but effective)
- illustmaker Facemaking tool in different languages
- Reasonably Clever lego avatars
Some you can save as an image but some require you to make a screen dump in MS Paint or other editing software and save as a jpg. See beginners’ challenge #4 for help.
Your tasks in Challenge #4
- Choose one of the tools above, or another one that you have not used before and create an avatar.
- Write a post about avatars - Here are some ideas for you. What are they, what sites have you used, insert your avatar image into the post and tell us about your avatar – how it resembles you – your, characteristics, interests and personality. Do you use one on your blog – why/why not? Do you use it on your comments? Why/why not? Do you prefer your real photo or a representation? Explain. Which of these could you use with students? How would you approach the creation of avatars? What do you use with your students? etc It is really your choice of content for this challenge but you must include an avatar that you have created from a new source. Hyperlink to the source that you used. Add appropriate tags.
- Check out the beginners’ challenge as it has some great instructions on adding a blog and a comment avatar.
- Do you use a reader for your RSS feeds? Again read through challenge#4 for beginners and start one.
- Find five other participants in this challenge and comment back on their posts. Leave the link to your blog post so that they return the favour.
- Read all the wonderful advice on Pages in Blogs from challenge#3. Thank you to all who have contributed to this document. Add further ideas and if you can, add the link to your blog post so you can refer to it later.
Extension activity
Create a voki or a talking avatar. Preferably use the recorded option rather than the text option as we love to hear the different accents. Add the embed code to your blog and write a brief post about it. Add the code to a text widget and add it to your sidebar so that it is always there.
Kick Start Your Blog Challenge#5 will be out on Monday, January 24th
Still playing catch up with the Teacher’s challenge. Between midterm exams, snow days, and my regular arranging projects – argh! I did take some time to experiment with different avatar tools. I didn’t really care for the ones featured in this post, so I found some others and shared the links in my post.
My South Park avatar of myself is very accurate! It’s a bit scary actually… would be funny to see my entire band as South Park characters!
Hi everyone! Here is my post for this activity.
Into My Classroom – Avatars
I didn’t create an avatar, but did a blog post on why I don’t use one. http://peetztechchatter.blogspot.com/2011/01/pictures-vs-avatars.html
I also added a post about how I use Google Reader in my day. http://peetztechchatter.blogspot.com/2011/02/google-reader.html
Well I’ve finally completed Challenge #4. I have had my avatar on my student blog for a while, but now it is on my professional blog as well. I created it a long time ago on wee world.
Sorry, a link would help: http://www.everthingprealgebra.edublogs.org is my teacher blog and http://www.mendezmathmatters.edublogs.org is my professional blog.
Also, please visit the Visitors page on the Pre-Algebra blog and leave a message for my students. They would love to hear from you.
I’m also playing catch up and just loving it. This week I hope to have the class make some avatars in groups using different tools. As we have just the one blog I’ll put them on it to view, and select one to use. Class vote? Rotation of avatars? Unsure where we’ll go after that. http://room10paremata10.blogspot.com/
I finally finished my avatar. I chose ballerina slippers as my image because it is one of my passions. At first I made a picasso head but it wouldn’t upload. I also started an RSS feeder which I absolutely love! I can do so many things now with it and easily access my favorite sites. I can also more easily check out other blogger’s sites which is great!
Check out the stories behind my avatars!
Kristin
Hi Kristin, love your ballerina slippers. I notice you have your blog avatar in your sidebar. You can upload this by going to Settings > Blog Avatar in the advanced admin interface.