Avatars are a staple of the internet culture of to today's society. They allow for the user to create the image of themselves that they want others to perceive, and also allow for a sense of anonymity with other people that you wouldn't necessarily have otherwise. When people who are insecure or ashamed about a certain part of their physical appearance, they can create an avatar that doesn't have such qualities and use that to interact with other people and leave their insecurities behind. People can also use avatars to accentuate particular parts of their personalities. If someone wants an avatar that acts like "the funny guy," then they might end up creating a clown or something similar. If they want to show your athletic side, even if you might not be the most buff guy, you might create an avatar that is extremely muscular and fit in order to show that you're athletic and in shape. So avatars allow the user to show the parts of themselves that they really want to and allow them to leave the parts they don't like behind.
As for the use of avatars in the classroom, the only instance where I could think they would come into play is in online classes. In a class that you actually go to, you can't create an avatar to go for you and present to everyone else only the qualities that you want to portray. You have to go yourself and you have to embrace everything about you that others are going to notice. But, with online classes, you'll probably never meet your classmates and therefore, if you have the option to create an avatar, even if it's just a profile picture, then you can still present to these people qualities that you want to present and ignore the ones you don't want to. In this instance, you wouldn't have to worry about contacting people and them looking at your profile and thinking you're weird and ignoring you. You can just contact them and not have it be an issue. But other than with online classes, I don't think avatars would really come into play in a classroom setting.
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