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English-Voice Thread

Page history last edited by Kyle Fritz 12 years, 4 months ago

Voice Thread and its Various uses in the English Classroom

By Jessica Urfer, Kyle Fritz and Mel Koons Fall 2011

 

voicethread.com

 

What is Voice Thread?

Voice Thread is an on-line multimedia presentation tool used to facilitate interaction between groups of people based on the presented material. Much like a discussion board, Voice Thread allows the participants to respond to and participate in the discussion in their own time, but unlike a discussion board they may respond in five different ways; Users may record a response either through a microphone or by calling in a response with a telephone, upload an audio file, write a response or create a video response. The idea behind this technology is that if the user can access it, they can interact with it. Voice Thread supports many different file formats including PDF, PowerPoint and Word. Users are also able to upload images from the web if necessary. 

 

 

 

 

voicethread.com

 

The video shown on the introduction page of Voicethread.com shows the various ways you can use Voice Threads for discussions. The possibilities for these presentations are seemingly limitless, as the presenter and the participants can all use the same document and even draw on the screen while they give their response to draw attention to the specific parts of the visual presentation that they wish to address.


Using Voice Thread

 

To sign up for Voice Thread, simply go to voicethread.com and click on Sign in or Register to create an account, you will need an email address. You will not need to download any software, as the entire program is on-line. Voice Thread is free, but educators and professionals may purchase a subscription for personalized versions of Voice Thread. These are outlined on Voice Thread’s website and can be purchased by individual teachers or school or state districts.

 

 

Creating A Voice Thread 

The above link will take you to a demonstration on how to create a Voice Thread. Once in your account, click on "Create". First you will upload the document you will discuss, then you will click on "Comment" and leave your discussion-starting comment. Don't forget to add a title and description before clicking on "Share" which will allow you to send the link to the people you want.

 

See how fast and easy it is to create a Voice Thread of your own! Click ------>https://voicethread.com/?#e2416338

 

To comment and interact with the Voice Thread, click on "comment" below the presentation screen and Voice Thread will ask which method you want to use. The first option on the left is a telephone. When a user chooses this option, they are asked to type in a telephone number, which Voice Thread will call and the user can leave their response on their voice-mail system. The comment is immediately uploaded, as you can see here. The next options are more basic, the video camera means that the user will leave a video response, the microphone means they will leave a voice response through their computer's microphone. "Type" means the user will leave a text response, and the arrow is to upload an audio response from the user's computer.

 

Other Interesting Features:

The Doodler!

Comment Moderation

Video Doodling


Using Voice Thread in an English Classroom

 

Voice Thread allows students to react to questions or material on their own time. This time can be used to prepare a response that they might be too shy to share in class, or one that they would not be able to formulate within the time restrictions of the class hour. In this way, Voice Thread is used for its most basic function: facilitating conversation. A teacher can also set up a class account with several different “identities” and monitor students’ activity through one account. Students can use the identities on their own accounts to create projects. With the different identities, students may reply as a character in a book, reacting to the event or other comments as their character might react. The Doodle function allows teachers to save discussions they have had on a topic and draw attention to the parts of the text on which they want to focus. This can facilitate a lecture that included a Read-Aloud. After the lecture the teacher could make the same demonstration available on Voice Thread so that students can revisit the tutorial and try their own Read-Aloud with the same text.

 

Three more ways VoiceThread can be used in an English classroom are:

  • Book Review
    • After students have read a book, either independently or as a class, they would be instructed to create a 2-4 minute VoiceThread that included a brief summary, what they thought of the book and whether or not they would recommend it to anyone else.
  • Pre-Class Discussion Discussion 
    • Assign a chapter and instruct students to post any questions, confusions, favorite moments or frustrations about the reading that could be addressed in the class discussion the next day.
  • Proofreading
    • The students would be instructed to read their essays aloud on the VoiceThread and post a picture of the text. Students would then leave three (3) constructive comments for revision.

 

In an English classroom, you can use VoiceThread in a variety of ways. The following examples showcase everything from the writing process to book reviews and read-alouds.

 

This is an example of a VoiceThread in which a student describes the five-step writing process that he used in his notebook. He was able to make annotations on the picture he posted in VoiceThread. http://ed.voicethread.com/#q.b12295.i79991

 

In this example of a VoiceThread, a teacher introduces the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck to her English class. She wants them to begin discussion of the cover and setting and first chapter of the novel.

http://voicethread.com/#q+english.b153041.i816684

 

This is an example of a VoiceThread where students read their favorite poems. 

http://ed.voicethread.com/#q.b579.i5325

 

This example of VoiceThread is of a reader's theater of the book Stella Luna by Janell Cannon. The two students are taking turns reading the book aloud, alternating pages.

http://ed.voicethread.com/#q.b483703.i2576825 

 

This example is a student's book review of Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes and includes students' digital illustrations of the book. It also shows how the teacher (or administrator) can add comments to a contributor’s posting.

 http://ed.voicethread.com/#q.b81341.i414811

 

 

http://sites.google.com/site/voicethreadliteracyessentials/home/voicethread-basics/examples-of-voicethreads-for-education

 

 


More Resources:

 

More ideas on how to use Voice Thread in the classroom

100 Ways to Use Voice Thread in Education

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/voiceThread/index.html

http://www.edutopia.org/voicethread-interactive-multimedia-albums

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/voicethread-new-teacher-boot-camp

 

 This is the chat discussion from http://newteacherchat.wikispaces.com/Archives+June+2011-2012, and it is a little tricky to read, but it may be useful for people who are just looking for basic ideas on how to use Voice Thread.

 

Resources for those new to Voice Thread

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr0wod6JZIU

http://voicethread.com/about/library/

http://voicethread.com/support/resources/manuals/

http://voicethread.com/products/k12/


Works Cited:

 

edutopia.org (Lesson Ideas)

voicethread.com (Voice Thread Information)

youtube.com (Videos)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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