Creating Positive Digital Footprints through Class Blogging Challenge

Our second challenge in the Edublogs Student Challenge is about creating online identities and leaving quality comments on other blogs.

Avatars and comments go together because when the avatar is uploaded to the user's name, it shows when the making comments.

Activity 1: Create our Class Avatar Slideshow

Part 1: Make an Avatar

Each individual will create an avatar using the options I have listed below. Avatars are digital representations of yourself. Decide what you like the best, and what represents your personality or traits.

Build Your Wild Self

This site is from the New York Zoos and Aquarium, which allows you to become a person and animal hybrid.

This is the "Wild Self" my 5 year old daughter created for me. She did not like the spider leg or scorpion option, but it was fun to try.

You'll need to print screen to capture your picture for this site.

Picasso Head

This was a fun site to build a Picasso-like head. No sign up is needed, just create and save or email it. I used the print screen method to save it.

These avatars are a little more artsy because they are cubist in Picasso's style.

Wimp Yourself

This one is based off of Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Again, no log in is needed. It gives you a link to what you've created. However, I still used the print screen to save it.

This one is quick to make. If my daughter made it her way, my eyes would be hearts.

Doppel Me

You actually don't need to create an account to use Doppel Me, however if you do it gives more options. We won't be doing that in class.

Just click "create" and get started. At the end, you'll need to use the print screen method to save it.

Reasonably Clever - Classic Kid-Safe Mini-Mizer

For this site, you have to "picture yourself in plastic." In other words, what would you look like if you were a Lego person?

I saved it through a print screen.

Reasonably Clever - Blockhead

Again, what type of blockhead could represent you? This was the closest "me" that I came up with. Print screen was how I saved it.

My Avatar Editor

This one was like creating my Wii avatar. When I was done, I chose the "export" option. I remembered to resize it as smaller, and zoomed it to fit, then saved it as a jpeg to my computer.

Harry Potter Doll Maker

If you like Harry Potter, then now's your chance to create your own variation of a Harry Potter character. After creating my "Harry Potter" avatar, I saved it as a GIF image. I then had to reformat to a jpeg.

Management of this task:

If our students want to save anything they create, it must be in "the cloud" (Google Apps). Therefore, this takes a little more time. I gave the kids 5 - 10 minutes of free time to explore which avatar they wanted to create.

By the end of 10 minutes, we saved their avatar by clicking print screen, then we reshaped it and saved it as a jpeg. We emailed it to me to save. If there was extra time, the student also saved it in Google Apps.

Part 2: Class Avatar Slideshow

After we create our avatars, we'll create a slideshow. Based on student recommendations from Mrs. Martinez's class, you should view this example from Global SPUDS placed in Animoto.


Management Tip:
Throughout the day, I'd grab the jpegs from my email, resize when needed, and save it to my hard drive. Then, I'd upload them into the Animoto.

Here's our final product:

 This post is inspired by the Edublog Student Challenge.