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Monday, August 16, 2010

Five Software Products for Adding an Avatar to Your eLearning

Here are 4 software products that allow you to add an avatar to your elearning courses. Avatars can be an important and meaningful addition to your elearning. Aiding in such things as increasing positive learner attitudes and providing a social role model for interactions.

NOAH--Provides animated characters to focus attention, point out and explain critical information, and make even the dullest material interesting. The company can create the instruction for you or you can build NOAH products yourself. Check out some examples of NOAH in action.

NOAH animated character (avatar) in action.
Codebaby--Provides avatars to engage learners, prospects and others in engaging dialog. You can see some examples of Codebaby in action for elearning here.

Here is a video of Codebaby in action.



Reallusion--Creates D cinematic animation tools for consumers, students and professionals. The company provides consumers with easy-to-use avatar animation, facial morphing and voice lip-sync solutions for real-time 3D filmmaking and previsualization for professional post-production. One of their products is Crazy Talk which is used for creating sophisticated, zany or dramatic talking characters for unique digital content. You simply import an image and CrazyTalk guides you through the process to bring it to life.Check out some Crazy Talk demos here. Crazy Talk can be good for animating characters you want to add to your elearning. Check out this video explaining how it works.




Media Semantics--This software installs on your desktop and lets you build royalty-free Flash and video materials using animated talking characters. The Builder works with your existing text, images, and Powerpoint slides to let you rapidly create effective and engaging materials. Check out some demos of Media Semantics here.

Avatar helping out with a multiple choice question.


Vcom3D--This company has a product suite including Studio and Gesture Builder. The suite of products allows for the creation of 3D animated characters that communicate through body language (including gesture or sign language), facial expression and lip-synched speech. Check out demos of Vcom3D here.

Here is a video of Vcom3D in action.


Customer service training incorporating an avatar to help the learner through the course.
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3 comments:

Liz Jenson said...

Hello Karl,
These examples are awesome. During one of my Bloomu courses I learned about blabberize at http://blabberize.com/. These examples show that the idea has become more well developed. Incorporating animated avatars to eLearning modules would definitely improve learner engagement and interest. Hope you are doing well, Liz Jenson, MSIT Graduate 2010

Karl Kapp said...

Liz,

Good to hear from you, hope all is going well. It is amazing how far this technology has come and it only makes me wonder how far it is going to go in the future. Exciting times.

Liz Jenson said...

All is going well. I am going to have to schedule a daily visit to your blog. You post the most informative and interesting technology developments. I don't, however, think I will need a mactini anytime soon!