Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Blog Entry 3: Voice Thread

Voice Thread is an online tool that allows teachers and students to create visual and narrative presentations. Creating a Voice Thread is easy enough that students of all ages are able to participate. There are numerous ways for narration to be added so that everyone who is able to log in to a Voice thread is able to share their comments. The images in a Voice Thread can easily be personal digital images, scanned images, or copyright free images from the Internet. In my first Voice Thread project I decided to scan student produced images to introduce some common literary terms used in my class. I added the narration and used my Voice thread as a teaching tool. I could easily link my Voice Thread on my school web page so that all students can access the Voice Thread and use it as a tutorial. This particular project could easily transition to a more student friendly project by having the students record their own narration. We could also add more terms and create a whole class Voice Thread. To access my first Voice Thread project click here.


Prior to completing my Voice Thread project I was motivated to do some research on the effects of Voice Thread in the classroom. Laila Weir's article, Voice Thread Extends the Classroom with Interactive Multimedia Albums, details a man's journey through Voice Thread and his realization that he was able to use this tool as an extension to his class. Bill Ferriter, a sixth grade teacher, began creating Voice Threads on a variety of topics in an attempt to "steal his student's online minutes. " He left his Voice Threads open for students to make comments and found himself receiving hundreds of comments. He suggests that many of students feel more comfortable participating online than they do in the classroom because their are a variety of conversations occurring at once which holds their interest and because they get to think about their comments. As the article proceeds Weir continues to explain what a Voice Thread is and the different privacy settings that are available. Overall, this article is a great advocate for Voice Thread. It provides a positive example and promotes reasons that this program should be utilized by educators.

4 comments:

  1. I love the idea of "stealing online minutes." I think that is an excellent way to reach kids. They spend a lot of time online. Giving them an "excuse" to so and getting them to learn at the same time works for me!

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  2. Your VoiceThread takes me back to the days when I taught language arts. I loved it except for grading all those essays. Your presentation was a nice change from photographs to the hand-drawn pictures. The pictures were simplistic, yet engaging. I really like that. You could have used other icons for the comments to give it a feel of collaborative variety; however, your expressive voice does add interesting variety. I like that you used underlying and circling throughout, which is important for elementary age students.

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  3. I really like the visual elements in your VoiceThread. The drawing tool helps keep students focused because their attention is drawn by the movement. The pictures are a great example of incorporating student work rather than just downloading photographs or clipart. Maybe you could ask students to add another example of the different figures of speech as a way of involving them and allowing them to make commentary. You have a great voice for elementary level students - it's very soothing and expressive. I enjoyed watching your VoiceThread!

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  4. That "stealing online minutes" really stuck in my mind because we have students that spend 3 to 4 hours online, why not tap into this underutilized tool for teaching. I liked the way you used the students' work, it helps to foster ownership and with ownership comes pride.

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