AvatarMaker is a good web tool that students can use to easily create various types of avatars. This tool which I discovered through a tweet by Noreen Dooley is featured in TCEA's ebook entitled 51 Fun Tech Tools & Resources for Busy Educators. In her Tweet, Dooley shared examples of how 3rd graders used AvatarMaker to create characters to incorporate in their Google Slides.
AvatarMaker is simple and easy to use. It is also web based and does not require any registration. Students can simply head over to avatarmaker.com and start the creation process. First, they need to click on one of the two images to select their gender. Next, they customize their avatar the way they want. There are five editing areas students can work on to create their unique avatars: face, eyes, hair, clothes, and backs (background). Alternatively, students can click on the 'Random' button located under the avatar to get suggestions of possible avatars to work on. Once the avatar is completed, students can share it on social media websites or they can download it in png format and use it on their blogs, or in their multimedia projects.
Avatars can be used for a wide variety of educational purposes. As I stated in Avatar Apps for Teachers and Students, avatars can be used in building communities in the classroom, to enhance students social emotional learning, incorporate them in educational activities such as writing projects, storytelling, and many more.
Giver AvatarMaker a try and share with us your feedback.
