Not all students will have permission to have their photos posted on classroom blogs. Having a student avatar is an inclusive way to give everyone in your class an online presence without compromising a students need for privacy. A very popular choice with students is ‘Build Your Wild Self’. ‘Build Your Wild Self’ has a very easy interface for students to create their own avatar. They can choose their human parts including gender, hair, eyes, mouth, and clothes. Then students can choose from a wide array of animal parts to create their own weird and wonderful creation. Once finished click on ‘Print your Wild Self’. You will then need to teach your students how to do a screen grab (I recommend the Snipping Tool in Windows 7 or just use ‘Print Screen’) and then copy and paste it into your choice of editing software (Microsoft Publisher, Adobe Photoshop or Paint.net) to then re-size the image for use as an avatar. I have used this with a class of 27 year 2/3 students last year and all were able to complete their avatar successfully, including the cutting, pasting and re-sizing.
Build Your Wild Self
