Voicethread

What is VoiceThread?

VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slideshow that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in many ways – using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via webcam).  VoiceThreads can be shared with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments, too.  VoiceThreads can be embedded to show and receive comments on other websites and can be exported to mp3 players or DVDs to play as archival movies.  In other words, VoiceThreads are very versatile and can prove very useful in educational settings.  The Online Learning department at NCCC has licenses available for NCCC instructors.

VoiceThread in the Asynchronous Classroom

College educator Russ Meade has been using VoiceThread to “humanize” the on-line classroom experience for his students.  He states: “ As a college Professor, I teach all over the US exclusively asynchronously. One of the drawbacks of online learning has always been that the student feels isolated and unconnected with either his or her classmates and the Professor. Online classes often unknowingly ” dehumanize” individuals simply because they are reduced to an e-mail address without the ” personal” closeness that often occurs in a synchronous class setting, Truly exemplary online classes require that the student interact between:

* The Student and the Course Content
* The Student and his or her Classmates
* The Student and the Professor

An online Professors, we can naturally accomplish all of the above with the many Web 2.0 tools that are now available. I tested 10 different Web 2.0 tools. However none except VoiceThread accomplished my goals of a Web 2.0 tool that was:

* Easy to operate for both the student and the Professor
* Free to all to use
* Allows the creativity that one needs in this new age when facts are not as important              as creativity” (VoiceThread, n.d.).

References:

VoiceThread. (n.d.) Using VoiceThread in an online course. Retrieved Feb. 24, 2011
VoiceThread. (n.d.) What is VoiceThread? Retrieved Feb. 24, 2011 from: