Voice thread is a tool that I am playing with and talking to teachers about. I was introduced to it by my colleague, the Learning Resources consultant. I made a couple of my own, just to get the practice, but we have used vociethread in workshops with teachers. They are a great way to synthesize learning around a particular topic.
It is interesting to see that not all people understand the many skills involved. First the thoughts that you want to express need to be synthesized. Then you have to find a visual that represents the idea you are trying to express. Finally, the words need to spoken clearly and succintly. The thing I do like about this is that for a good voicethread to be created, it is really the thinking skills that are needed, not the technical ones.
The technical skills about finding an image that is free or creating a visual and then uploading it is another thing to master. In my experience, the most difficult skills for some people is to realize that before you choose an image, you need to know what you want it to represent. That leads me to make the point that sometimes the 'fun' of technology gets in the way of thinking. We get so excited about the cool pictures we can use that we are not careful about what they are really saying. Cool tools are great, but they should be there to support and stimulate thinking.
These links are for an inquiry group we are working with and if you scroll down there are 2 voicethreads created by the teachers after our first day of learning together. http://imaginethis.wikispaces.com/understandingthequest http://imaginethis.wikispaces.com/Inquiry+Learning
This link shows how a teacher used voicethread to collect his students background kjnoweldge about Shakespeare. http://voicethread.com/share/326561
In talking to teachers, they either really like voicethread, or they get frustrated with it. It seems that it does not always running smoothly and then students can get frustrated. Like most technology, problem-solving is a major necessity.
Learning from the Energy of Our Differences
10 years ago
1 comment:
I love voicethread for the very fact that it gets the students to converse, to really communicate about deep thoughts and feelings that are expressed by the images they choose.
I found that it helped the process if the students were given the freedom to take their own photos with the direction that they were to show an image(s) that they feel is important to them.
In pairs, students used graphic organizers to create a word map for their pictures which helped to generate clear and complete sentences. Of course they needed to rehearse speaking their several times in several different venues before they actually even recorded the information. THey loved speaking in front of a mirror which helped to get the jitters and the laughter out of their system.
I found the process took about two weeks to create a voicethread but the great thing about the process was that is was so fun, made time go by quickly, and it earned them a mark which began the moment the process started until the finished product emerged.
My students also loved the fact that any mistake entitled them to a 'do over' -another chance and that they could work through the assignment in any order they felt suited them. One said,"It's so fun that we can work this puzzle anyway that we want?" Freedom, entitlement, ownership, engagement,enjoyment, and collaboration are words I would use to sum up this activity.
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