Congrats, Shanon! An e-mail has been sent to Shanon so she's going to have LOADS of goodies being sent her way and I am so excited for her!
Days 2 through 6 are still going strong, so make sure to get your entires in!!
Time to gear up for...
I love technology. I would use it day in and day out (I already do... really), but I do believe it has a place in education. It shouldn't be ALL that is used throughout the day, all day, every day, but when it is used, it can be one mighty AND powerful tool!
VoiceThread is one of my FAVORITE technology tools to use in the classroom. The possibilities with it are endless... so many different areas of the curriculum can be integrated into presentation format, which is what VoiceThread essentially is!
So, what is it?
VoiceThreads are "conversations in the cloud." It's a collaborative video making service that is completely FREE. Yep, free (teachers LOVE free)!!! If you'd like, there are single educator licenses that can be purchased to where you can add up to 50 student accounts to your account but psh.. it's FREE!!!! And I like free... :)
Anyways... so when you're using VoiceThread, it's kind of like PowerPoint. You upload photos to some kind of program. But, with VoiceThread, you have a method of commenting over the photos. This commenting can be done by voice, by type (using your keyboard), or by phone.
Then, during the presentation, others can make comments by text, too! Talk about collaboration.
But, you're probably wondering, how can I use this if I'm an elementary teacher??
Then, you may want your students to do a project using VoiceThread, but you're not sure how to have them complete a project... so, below are some examples!
Compare/contrast. A teacher named Debbie and her class that wants to share the similarities and differences between first and second grade for incoming second graders. This would be a neat, end of year project!
Inquiry projects - what students have learned - reflections in the form of voice overs on pictures.
Book reviews. This would be simple for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade students to complete in just a few slides:
This one was set to not be embeddable SO if you want to view it, click here.
Response to literature assignments. This can be done individually, in small groups, or large groups like this class did. What an awesome review activity!
This last one is goofy. It's ME!!
State study. I did this project for one of my undergrad projects and it had to be a project we would implement in the classroom. So I did mine on the study of the state of Ohio. I found out more about Ohio in this project than I knew about Ohio in my entire life... funny, huh?
So, as you can see, VoiceThread can be used in a multitude of ways in the classroom across a variety of grades!
Where do you think YOU can use VoiceThread in your classroom? I'd love to hear some of your ideas!
This is great! I teach 5th grade and I am always looking for different ways for students to present research projects! This is great! I can see my students using this when they have to learn about the key leaders during WWII. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteOH! That is such a good idea! The thing of it is - you can actually provide feedback RIGHT on the project, too! Just as if it were a paper project. You can provide it via voice or type, just like students can when they are recording. SO glad you may find this useful in the future :)
Delete-Sara