Imaginative Constructs

Today’s edtech focus is the web resource “Voicethread” (http://voicethread.com/). Voicethread is an online resource where students and teachers can create a slideshow of voice and pictures. As the site explains, voicethreads are a “place to talk, capture and then save the voices that surround our images, a new kind of web forum.” Rather than just a slideshow, voicethreads allow a rich story based on the experiences of the child to add a new dimension to the images. Told from the perspective of the narrator, the images and audio become a new way to express feeling, thoughts and ideas.

So how do we use it in the class?

I have never done one with a class but that will change this year!! I have done one as a project for university which is where I first came into contact with the site. I have added it below here. It is a very rough attempt so bear with me. I decided to talk about the integration of technology at young ages and the physical difficulties that may arise in young students.

I think this a great tool for classrooms. It is simple to use for both teachers and students. It does require some equipment like mikes. As well, unless students use pictures exclusively from the web, there will need to be some work to bring students images to the computer and then into voicethread. However, the ability for the students to interact and describe their thoughts is powerful to me and I think students will begin to really enjoy the ability to express themselves. The other key is that there can be interactions by others from their school communities, homes or other locations. Just from putting this on the blog here, I can see that someone has added a comment to my discussion.

Some uses could include:

• book reports
• literature circles/novel studies
• Social studies investigations of communities: I am thinking of having students work on showing how their communities can be safe and friendly communities using this tool. We may do it as a whole class first though.
• Compare and contrast exercises
• Communications with other classes on a topic: Again you might want to work with a class from another community or country.
• Creating tutorials by kid for kids.
• Field trip records
• Review of topics for students.
• Reading of poetry or stories with pictures interpersed.

The nice thing about this is that it be private allowing viewing only by people you invite. As well, it is easy to add and manage class groups through the interface. However, unless you are using pictures from the web, there would be work involved in getting student work that they may want to use onto the computer. Also, there is quite a bit of planning that needs to go into this before just letting students onto this. As you can tell by mine, I could probably have used some practice and rehearsal. There is definately some work you would need to do with students before, practicing writing for this sort of media as well as how to use the voice effectively to keep the audiences attention. I would not just throw the students on the computer and expect to get quality products out it.

However, I think it is a really neat tool to begin to bring storytelling important ideas and events from the lives and perspectives of students to a digital format.

Do you have any uses for Voicethread that you think are effective?

~ by ihancock on September 20, 2007.