Voice Thread is tool for having conversations in the cloud. You can add
films, photos or images and your own voice narrative to have a presentation.
Then you upload your Voice Thread and others can watch and comment with video,
voice or text.
You start by going to http://voicethread.com and register an account
there. No software is needed since it is a web based application.
To start you login and begins to create your voice thread. You upload
photos or images from your computer or the internet. When you have uploaded
pictures you can comment your pictures either by voice, video or text. You can
also draw on the media which is called doodling while you are talking. When you
are finished with your presentation you share your voice thread. You can choose
if you want your presentation to be public or private and if other can comment
on the voice thread.
I have used voice thread some times. In the beginning I thought that it
was a confusing on how to do, but when I tried it was not that hard. If you
need help to get started there are several tutorials on the web (ex.YouTube)
that shows how to do a voice thread.
How Voice Thread
can be used by teachers and pupils
Voice Thread can be used in many ways both by teachers and pupils. The
teacher can make different presentations, either as a lesson or as an
introduction to a theme or work area. The teacher can after the presentations
ask some questions that the pupils should comment on. The pupils can use voice
thread to do a presentation of their work. The teacher and other pupils can
comment on the presentation.
Before you share your voice thread you can work and change in your
presentation so that you are satisfied when you share it. This can make the
pupils more secure than if they do a presentation in front of the class
directly.
Voice thread is a way of making presentation a little more fun for both
pupils and teachers. Maybe this can capture the pupils’ interest and motivation
by using this kind of technology.
Other considerations
When working with pictures you need to be aware of the copyright of the
pictures. The easiest way is to let the pupils use a website with pictures
without copyright. There are some websites that offers this. The pupils can
also use a digital camera and take own pictures to use in their presentation.
I have never heard about Voice Thread before, so your blog, Helena, really made me curious. I like that it is a web based application, has no cost, and no need of additional software. Just register an account. My understanding is that this can be done in advance by the teacher if you want your students to use it, or the students can set up their own accounts. This depends on what age group you are working with and how used to computers your students are.
ReplyDeleteBecause you can save everything in the cloud, it does not take up any space on your computer and you can easy get to it from any computer.
On the web page they suggest to "jump in and start creating". This is probably even easier for students than it is for us, since they don't have the same scare for computers as most of us do. They will just try and learn from that.
A great way to start this in class is to present the project to the students with a Voice Thread presentation that you have made and then have the students try. Have them work on a very simple presentation from start and then see what they can create,
i found a very helpful link where you can find a lot of examples of how Voice Thread has been used by educators. It is called Voicethread 4 Education wiki. http://voicethread4education.wikispaces.com
Voice Thread seems to be a very helpful application to make presentations even more fun.