Academic avatars are getting more and more popular as the academic faculty becomes younger, more Internet savvy and avatar-ish. I'll also get my avatar asap!
Avatars can be used by classroom teachers when designing digital stories or delivering content. Avatars can represent a tour guide explaining travels along the Silk Road, or represent real life characters like Mark Twain giving a lecture on his home or Einstein introducing the solar system.
"Delivering Performance Feedback to Teachers" is an interactive and conversation-based training simulation that lets principals practice giving feedback to virtual teacher (avatars). I think the game is beyond helpful due to the fact as school leaders, it's hard to give a neutral feedback to the teachers from time to time, which may deter the leaders from giving it at all.
Avator tools are like the comic tools I have covered in an earlier post before, they both involve the use of images but in a funny and joyful way. Of course these tools can be used for a variety of educational purposes with our students in the classroom.
After having run across with this virtual reality platform while reading through the last week's article, I have been exploring it to see how I can facilitate it in my workplace. It's kinda Second Life application which might cause you to become virtual reality life addicts. Highly catchy, highly recommended :)