It amazes me ever week that there are all of these tech tools available that I have never even heard of. I was throughly impressed with voice threads and the many features that it had available for free. The name completely threw me off as I thought it was just something similar to Audacity of being able to take audio notes. When Jesse and others presented it last week I realized that we had a goldmine of endless possibilities.
Voice thread I feel is the combination of the tech tools that we have already looked at. It has a very similar set up and features to socrative and padlet while at the same time having the functions of audacity. I really like the ability to use both audio and video either when presenting new information or when commenting on certain slides. A really interesting function that we tried (with Jesse) was the ability to leave a voicemail in the slide. Voice thread would literally call your phone allowing you to leave whatever message you wanted. While I don't know how much use that would actually have I still thought it was creative nonetheless.
The great thing about voice thread is that I feel it can have multiple types of usage within the classroom. One can simply type up a lesson plan for the day to present to students or embed a video with comments on a slide. If you wanted to get a little more creative you can use the tool for when students are absent by having all of the information but also adding audio and video components so that students understand what is exactly expected of the assignment. Another great aspect is the ability to put the usage of the tool into the hand of your students. I could totally see using audio or video representations when doing short assignment questions since students normally have a better time saying information instead of writing it or using it to give constructive feedback.
On a final note I really enjoyed Jesse Samantha, Jimmy, Betsy and Carl's presentation style. I felt that they had a really good grasp on the class throughout the entirety of time allotted for the presentation. This is something I felt I lacked when presenting audacity and sometimes when I student teach. I have to make sure that I am engaging for the entire time instead of just the beginning. A great presentation all around with the style and the tool that they taught us.
JESSE AND OTHERS? Be right back, crying.
ReplyDeleteMuneer. First of all, I really enjoyed how you titled the post "Socrative" but the proceeded to talk about VoiceThread. Very funny. Secondly, I'd like to thank you for all the positive insights about the tool itself. As we were preparing to present, many of us (but especially I) struggled to see the utility of VoiceThread. Your positivity and appreciation of the possibilities is very refreshing. And you are too kind, sir, in your praises. We just do what we do when we do what we do.
On a different note, I was wondering which of the many tools, if any, you realistically foresee yourself using in the classroom. I have been struggling all semester to appreciate these tools because of the many potential logistical problems. Chief among this is technology availability. I have tried to use technology in my current placement, and felt very uncomfortable dealing with students' personal devices (text messaging rates, data usage, safety, etc).
Thanks again for the thoughts!
LOL wow, thanks for putting me on blast
ReplyDeleteName has been noted and I changed the title. I could really see myself using the video portion to present thoughts I had on students paper. It would make grading a lot easier by simply uploading their paper and then just voicing my thoughts on the paper instead of having to write them down.
Muneer-
ReplyDeleteI appreciated your comparison of the tool voice thread with the myriad of other tools we have learned about and used this semester. I too thought voice thread was going to be very similar to audacity and was surprised to find it was quite unique.
Though I thought the application would be very useful, in a number of ways, in the class room, I was slightly turned off by the price of the premium version and the limited capabilities of the free option.
Monreer, broheem,
ReplyDeleteI feel all the feels. Voice Thread was one of my favorite tools from those which were presented. It was so versatile that I couldn't enumerate all of its capabilities. One way it can be applied, however, is to tell stories. For instance, John and I collaborated during the session to create a short story about some guys who were fishing, caught a fish, then ate it later. Was like in that one move.. idk. Anyway, we took some pictures, put some audio in the background, and told the world's greatest story. All because of Audacity!... Voice Thread! yeah there's the rub. Keep gettin those two confused. ANyway, I think voice thread is a tool students could leverage particularly well when they have to do presentations. Instead of those flimsy posterboards or those boring powerpoints, they can tell their story or whatever with pictures / video and audio accompaniment. The audio files are like subtitles or captions but better. Glad you liked it man!
keep it real, munroe
Dear Muneer,
ReplyDeleteAlthough I was initially hurt by being called "and others" at the beginning of your blog post, you redeemed yourself by the name drops you threw in at the end. I fully recognize that Jesse steals the show, but Muneer, I thought we were friends! That being said, it was great to see that you found our presentation beneficial and that you liked Voice Thread as a tech tool! I will admit that when I first started working with Voice Thread I was very frustrated by the limitations of using the free version of the site. However, when I looked at examples of how teachers were using Voice Thread out in the real world, I was really impressed by what students were able to create using this site for various projects. I think that Voice Thread shows promise across disciplines because of the ability of students/teachers to add comments in whatever format: voice, video, or text, that they desire. This gives students a bit of anonymity if they desire. For students who are struggling to participate in class I see Voice Thread as a great way to give students a venue to share their thought processes. I love your idea of using Voice Thread to give feedback. It is faster to say your comments and record them than write them out and it also adds a really personal touch. Thanks for your thoughts Muneer!
This post has made me personally reconsider how I would use Voice Thread in the classroom! At first I thought it was a neat tool but that out of all the tools we have learned about this would be one of my least likely to use in the classroom. This is just because of my own initial perceptions of the tool and how I see myself using technology in my own classroom.
ReplyDeleteHowever, your idea about using Voice Thread to give students feedback on their assignments really got me thinking! I think that it would be cool to even use this tool to provide feedback for a question that students commonly missed on quizzes/tests. This way you could refer students to Voice Thread, speak about misconceptions that students had with the problem, and then even guide them through a similar problem step by step. We do a lot of test corrections in my placement as they are required to retake a test. This would free up a lot of time as a teacher as we meet one on one with each student and walk them through problems they thought were especially difficult. As of right now we do this during our study hall hour or after school, and it usually takes students about a week's worth of time to complete the required steps before making up the test. This tool could speed that process up a lot! Students would not need to rely on a limited amount of time per week and could then avoid getting further behind in their work.
Thanks for the great post...as you can see it really got me thinking about the power that this tool holds!