With classes moved to the virtual space due to coronavirus covid-19 concerns, a digital art professor at Shanghai University’s Fine Arts College has created different avatar versions of himself to help students concentrate during live-streams and recorded lessons.
Professor Jiang Fei cycled through different versions, including monsters and robots. But according to China’s The Paper (via SCMP), the students’ favorite was an anime schoolgirl.
The professor even wrote the software, which transforms him into different avatars in real time as he teaches and transports him to a virtual classroom.
China Tech City reports that he hoped this would make the online classes fun for his students and learned that they actually seemed more engaged with the avatars, with the anime schoolgirl being the biggest crowd-pleaser.