Grabba Beast, hilarious avatars or writing prompts

Another great site for building avatars is Grabba Beast.  Here, students can design a wacky beast that can be colored however they want.  I have also seen suggestions for this site to be used as a writing prompt, in that students can give their beast a story, or practice descriptive writing by going into details about the textures, behaviors, or smells of the beast they created.  Have fun!

Meet Sven, the kung-fu viking monster:

Manga Avatars

Another cool avatar site is Face Your Manga.  Manga is the term used to describe the drawing technique you see in a majority if Japanese animated series.  Using Face Your Manga, students can create a manga version of themselves to look like a character in their favorite TV show.

NOTE: This site definitely requires supervision.  I am very disappointed to say that despite the educational uses of this site, there is inappropriate content on it.  When designing your avatar, in the Stuff then Gadgets category, there is an option to illustrate your avatar displaying an inappropriate hand signal or holding a lit cigarette.  Also, in the Clothing category, there are some quite revealing clothing items. 

It is disappointing that this content is on the site because I imagine students thinking that this avatar site is more interesting than others.  But, with proper supervision, I think it would still be possible to use.  Either way, at least you all know about it now!

Here's mine:

How sweet it is! M&M students!

Well, I thought that it may as well be avatar week.  There are so many neat avatar building sites out there, I might as well share some of my favorites with you.  Today's site can be used to transform your students into M&M versions of themselves.  Visit Become an M to....become an M&M!  Just create an account and start making your candy self!

Here's mine:

Mini-mize your students!

Making avatars has become an important part of using the internet.  Avatars are a safe way to show a likeness (or not-so-"like"ness) of yourself without showing your true identity.  They are also really fun to make and can even be used in the classroom!

Mini-Mizer is a neat site where students can create a Lego version of themselves. You can have your students create a Lego avatar and then save it in a screen shot .  You can use the avatars in your SMART Notebook files, PowerPoints, or in your blogs and wiki's.  Here's mine!

Just a note....one of the props available (for whatever reason, who knows??) is a lit cigarette.  I just want to give a heads up because you may want to preface using this site with a mini-lesson on what is and is not appropriate for school, and maybe even how smoking is bad....even for Legos! Shame on them!  Despite this, the site is great for students! Enjoy!