VoiceThread - Interactive Digital Stories
Every once in a while a technology comes along that changes the way we learn and teach. A few years ago there was sudden explosion in the use of Microsoft’s FREE Photostory software. Educators soon caught onto the idea of digital story telling and now many teachers, K-12 and further education, are using it in their delivery as a manner of creating quick resources.
Some creative uses of using the software also emerged. Teachers accepting assignments in the form of digital stories; students providing feedback in the form of digital stories; etc. Some of these creative uses can even be seen in our own organisation in the Automotive and Building & Construction departments.
But what if we could take that technology and hand it over to our students… for immediate contribution, feedback, questions and discussions. What if we could make our digital stories truly interactive…?
Now we can, enter VoiceThread.com. VoiceThread offers a way for us to tell our stories (or deliver explanations) in a whole new interactive way. We upload our Excel, Word, PowerPoint documents, images, videos narrate over them and then hand it to our students. Our students can then comment in the form of text, audio and even video leading to some very interesting interactivity.
Another incredible feature of VoiceThread is the ability to doodle (draw) on top of the documents, pictures or videos we’ve uploaded. The best way to explain how this all works is to have a look at a few of the public voicethreads that are hosted on the site.
With a free account you can setup 3 VoiceThreads to which you can invite contributors or have it public. With an account you can also add multiple personalities. This allows you to, in a class situation, login your own VoiceThread account and assign a personality to each of your students (the don’t need their own accounts!).
Give it a try today and experience a whole new way to tell your stories.
***UPDATE***: Colette Cassinelli from edtechVision has given a great link in the comments to her wiki where she is collecting examples of how VoiceThreads are getting used in educational institutions. It has some great examples! Thanks Colette.
Tags: digitalstories, elearning, photostory, voicethread, web2.0
March 6th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I am collecting examples of how educators are using Voicethread in their classroom or for professional development on a wiki at: http://voicethread4education.wikispaces.com/
My plan is to share these examples with other technology teachers who provide professional development in their schools.
Feel free to add your own examples or links to resources. Thanks in advance,
Colette
March 7th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Thanks for the link Collette.
As part of our department one of our primary focuses is supporting teachers by providing them with training… so that they can then use the tools to provide training to students.
Maybe in a few months I’ll have some examples to share with you
-RK