Watch this voicethread below by clicking the play button. (click the yellow X to close the profile prompt box and then click the play button in the middle of the player and the voicethread will start.)
It will explain what a voicethread is, how it can be used, how to navigate around, as well as the different commenting options available. It also gives some good examples of the variety of ways a voicethread can be used. Listen to the voicethread page with the portrait of the 1950's mother with her kids...it's too funny. And Jack, the creator of Sword Dragon man, is so cute talking about his picture.
Here is a good example of how an elementary class used voicethread for a poetry project. You can let it run automatically and you'll hear and see the comments on each page or you can click through a couple of the pages by using the arrow in the lower irght corner of the voicethread...and randomly listen/read some of the comments people left. Also watch for how people used the annotation feature. (don't listen to the whole thing..it's too long)
Here is a place to browse different voicethreads on the voicethread site. Take a look around. You can also use the search box to search by keyword if you want to look for particular subjects like literature or poetry, or search for a specific name of a book, animals, tutorials, names of different web 2.0 tools, etc.
You can also browse through these examples grades 6-8 and examples in 9-12 by viewing the embedded voicethreads on the page (notice they are posted on a wiki!). Here is a database of different voicethread ideas by subject matter. You can use the menu at the right to select a subject.
Talk back....
What are your thoughts about Voicethread? Would it fill a need in your classroom? What ideas do you have about how it could be used meaningfully with students? Did you see anything as you browsed around that sparked an idea for you?
7 comments:
Voicethread is ultra cool, but there are so many components that I would really need to learn and practice before I could ever feel comfortable using it in my classroom. It seems to be an integration of several technology aspects: slide shows, video, voice/text for instruction as well as feedback, and probably other ideas I might have missed.
One awesome idea: I had honors students re-create The Red Badge of Courage in pictorial form over the summer to demonstrate imagery and figurative language in the novel. Wouldn't it be great to have the students do the assignment as a Voicethread?
The Red Badge of Courage on a Voicethread would be a great idea. The kids would love it. I feel the same way you do, the Voicethread is cool but I would need to take time to practice it before using. I did enjoy seeing some science related Voicethreads. There was one on Chernobyl that was interesting. I would use Voicethread as a cross curricular activity/project.
Voicethread seems like a very cool tool. I like the thought of students commenting on various things that they see. It also gives more ownership of the comment because it is a picture of the student and their own voice (hard to fake). I could see this being a great tool in the classroom; I like the thought of students critiquing their own work with others or commenting about some problem or issue posted by the teacher. I believe that this would be meaningful with the students because of the real communication with each other. I also like the thought of the student interacting on their own time. The idea that came to my head is the use of Voicethreads for absent students or students that have chronic illnesses to be part of the class.
Students could use this to do a group project. Loved the one with the mother and her children that was too funny. How hard is this to do? Would making a video be easier. My Geometry students finish the trimester by solving a real life problem that can be solved using something we learned. Students do videos, power points and posters but could do this instead.
Voice threads, better used in academic classrooms but could be used in P.E. for introducing ideas/activities showing technique/rules of activities also allowing access from home or outside of class.
To fill a need as a review for ideas/activities reviewing technique watching /listing to other talk about activities/ideas/techniques and share them personal experiences.
Ideas to use voice threads, sharing lessons/activities with others and communicating with parents/the world about student accomplishments and experiences.
I, too, enjoyed learning about VoiceThread. I viewed the initial ones about the dragon and then the one about the mom and her children. Funny! Then I got into others that dealt with secondary English. If I could ever figure out how to do it, it looks like it would be both fun and educational to do a VoiceThread as a novel project or even as a response to a question regarding the reading.
no, this is not hard to do...it's a matter of uploading a picture or video and then adding narrative to it via a mic. As you may have seen feedback from others can be done via written comments or oral comments. Then the voicethread can be shared via being embedded into a blog, wiki, or by just sharing the URL.
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