Voki is an animated and graphic way to present information in a fun and meaningful way. This is a Voki:
You can customize the characters face, voice style, and backgrounds amongst other things. You can even record your voice via microphone or even cell phone by calling the number that they provide you with. Its hard to deny that it is fun to use. The students that I have introduced it to really enjoyed it.
So, how have I used this in the classroom? I have an example on my webpage. In Guidance A, the 8th graders are studying the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey. The first chapter basically establishes a general understanding of each of the habits with definitions. What I did was create a Voki for each of the 7 Habits and call on a student to press play on the smart board. After listening, students would raise their hand and the student who pressed play would choose a student to identify the habit that the Voki defined. This would go on through the 7 different Vokis. I could repeat the exercise over and over, but I feel at 8th grade, that they get it by that point and it would be overkill. I also introduced this application to my 6th and 7th graders at the end of the marking period and they were tasked with creating senryus (non-nature haikus).
The only catches I notice with Voki are that they require registration and only allow for 30 seconds of content per Voki. Voki's Terms of Service are child friendly, but, by registering, a user needs to access email to verify the registration. This presents a logistical problem, especially for middle school and lower. What I have done in the past is create a single account via gmail, registered for Voki, and gave out the username and password to the students. This does present logistical problems of its own. Students could potentially edit or delete other students' works. Teacher moderation is definitely required for this. You could possible create 5 gmail accounts/Voki registrations per class and parse the students that way, but that would become cumbersome if you teach many different classes per day. The 30 second caveat is hard to overcome. A student could create 2 30 second Vokis to make up for 1 minute, but I feel that takes away from the effect of Voki.
I definitely see the potential of using Voki when reviewing vocabulary. It adds another dimension to terms and definitions that are more graphic than flash cards. When reviewing states and capitals, a teacher could create an individual Voki for each state and the students could respond by saying the capital. Similarly, for science, students could identify elemental symbols. One thing I think would be cool to see would be students creating short poems and putting them in Voki. The possibilities are endless, but restrained to 30 seconds.
If you have any ideas or questions about Voki, feel free to comment or email me @ hockingj@haven.k12.pa.us or tweet me @jahocking . #haven2point0
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. 
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