The Voki Team is so excited to introduce Ashleigh Catanzariti to the #VokiFam! Ashleigh has been doing some incredible work with her students in Sydney, Australia. We were extremely impressed with how she was able to use Voki in order to create an independent and autonomous learning experience for her students. Please read on to learn more about this brilliant activity and how to recreate it in your classroom:

Hello from down under! I am an educator from South Western Sydney, Australia, currently fortunate enough to be in a Digital Technologies/ STEM coaching role across two innovative primary schools. I have a strong passion for authentic integration of technology and believe it provides amazing opportunities to enhance learning and take it to a new level.

I have recently been using Voki to assist students in hearing sight words they are learning. While introducing BlueBots to a Kindergarten classroom, the teacher asked me to create a sight word game for their students to use during reading groups. I quickly discovered the game would become problematic for the students if they couldn’t remember the sight word correctly and a teacher wasn’t there to assist them. I decided a solution was needed so the students could independently play the game. To solve this dilemma, I use an Augmented Reality app (HP reveal) alongside Voki so the students could hear how to say the word correctly. When the students are unsure of a word, they use their iPad to scan over the unknown sight word and the Voki character reads it to them. Students are now able to complete this task independently and have the ability to hear the correct word if they haven’t learnt it yet.

I have created a handy “How To” below if you are interested in making a similar game for your students!

How to create your own sight word game using HP reveal and Voki.

These can be used under a BlueBot mat as part of a coding literacy activity or for any other sight word game!

Step 1: Create sight word cards including a different image per word (This will help with recognition when scanning into HP reveal).

Step 2: Use Voki to create a character and record them saying the sight word. Save to your iPad.

 

Step 3: Using HP reveal scan the sight word card, upload the Voki from your photo album, name it and make it public for others to see.

 

After introducing this to the Kindergarten team, a colleague suggested using this same idea to read word problems for Kindergarten to solve. The possibilities are endless through the use of these tools and so many others that are now right at our fingertips.

Thanks so much, Ashleigh, for sharing your expertise with the #VokiFam! To see more amazing tech activities by Ashleigh Catanzariti, follow her here.

If you have an awesome way to use Voki and would like to write a guest blog post to share with the Voki Community, email The Voki Team at  feedback@voki.com. We look forward to seeing how you use Voki!