Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Examples of VoiceThread

There are many outstanding examples of VoiceThread for educators and others to access. I would like to share a few here that may be of interest.

I watched Pat Muth's VoiceThread about her family passport picture. She is the mother of one of the founders of VoiceThread, Steve Muth. I must apologize, but I had to giggle as she was too funny when she commented about some of her children looking like they have anxiety issues. She didn't understand, after all..."she was their mother and so they should be happy!" I thought of my own children and wondered how many pictures do we have that I have made them sit through which would have give a similar message to the viewers. Her VoiceThread was priceless and 'a keeper'! This made me realize the importance of family history behind photos and how VT can so effectively contribute by providing additional valuable information and details to a photo. I am so enthused about this prospect that when I go home to Ontario for a visit this summer, I would like to pull out some old family albums and assist my 85 year old Mother in creating a VoiceThread to preserve our family history and share it with others! All thanks to Pat Muth's delightful family VoiceThread!

VoiceThread is used very effectively on K-12 Mathcasts 500 project which is entirely VoiceThread based. Students are able to view a written problem and then with using the Doodling tool they can draw the solution to the problem for others to see. Audio and text comments assist others as well as enables the teacher to view and listen to their understanding of the math problem. Adults as well as students are able to collaborate on solving math problems. A variety of strategies are shared on MathCast which is so effective student learning!

Both adults and students can share their knowledge and pleasure when studying or travelling to various places around the world through VoiceThread. Arlene's VoiceThread about her travel to La Paz, Bolivia gave the viewer a wonderful tour of the city with beautiful pictures and commentary. Sharing what the picture was about, provided details that still photos are unable to do. Students in a class on the Langwitches site studied the Galapagos Island and using VoiceThread, they were able to share their knowledge. As a collaborative project, each student was given the opportunity to speak about what they had learned rather than write. For some students, this would be a good medium to showcase their learning of the Galapagos Island. The opportunity to share student learning about various areas in Canada, various Canadian cultures and the history of Canada could be met through the use of the VoiceThread tool.

These are just a few examples of the use of VoiceThread. There are so many examples that you can access on the VoiceThread site as well as even Google some ideas that you might have. You will be amazed at the number of voicethreads that have been created on a number of topics!

1 comment:

Linda Morgan said...

Okay, if I ever go to La Paz, I'm definitely hitting the witches' market....very cool.