My top 5 Avatar creation sites for students

Can you match the avatar style with the websites below?

Here are my top 5 favourite (Flash-based) websites for creating student avatars. Creating avatars allows students to include personal digital representations of themselves for online or in digital materials without relinquishing any privacy. Plus they are fun to create and a kid-friendly addition to any project, presentation or learning material.

Nintendo Wii – Who doesn’t love creating a Mii!
Lego – A class favourite but try “snipping” only the heads and shoulders to avoid “lightsabers” and other Stars Wars© paraphernalia
Manga – perhaps better suited for students 11+
Bitstrips or BitstripsforSchools.com – Now a Facebook app but a popular choice as all Ontario students have freeaccess to Bitstrips for Schools.
Dopple Me – Another favourite!

+1 Bonus – Voki – Why not add your voice to an avatar too!

It should come as no surprise that students love creating them and they are great as signatures for wikis, blogs, documents, websites etc. I find them especially useful in Voice Thread or other online sites or games that offer the option to upload a picture. Remember that blank is always an option but a cartoon avatar is fun and safer than a photo. Use the “snipping tool” or another screenshot tool to take a .jpg (or other picture file) of your avatar to share in other sites. I keep a .jpgs of cartoon avatars in my Dropbox account ready to be used in projects or uploaded to sites. Now if only those the avatar creation sites for The Simpsons and Diary of a Wimpy Kid start working again…

P.S. Did you guess them all? Perhaps you will have to visit each site to find the answer. While you are there, go ahead and create+save an avatar of yourself too! Consider it your professional development for the day! 🙂 Below is an avatar of one sad little lad in our house with the current states of the TFC, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Blue Jays this year! “Maybe they will win next year Dad!” I am crossing my fingers for him!