This is a guest post by educator and VoiceThreader, Jim Briggs.

I am an Art Educator, 24 years strong, and I say, “you can teach an old dog new tricks!” Although I primarily teach traditional art: drawing, painting, collage, sculpture, etc., to grades K-5, I also enjoy infusing a little art & technology-based learning into my lessons when I feel it is necessary and extremely useful to my students. For me, VoiceThread quickly became one of those perfect tools to use every day. I have included many photos, and VoiceThread videos at the end of this blog that may help visually explain how in-depth I use technology, and how it is such an integral component within my Art Room.

At a glance, I simply felt VoiceThread could be the primary vessel that my students could use to capture their own visual expressions and artwork, and to showcase and share their amazing talents for our End-of-the-Year Art Show.  After familiarizing myself further with VoiceThread, I quickly realized this program could have many purposes within my Art Room. Over the last four years of working with VoiceThread I’ve found it useful for designing dozens and dozens of Video-Art Lesson Introductions and Demonstrations, Student Work Times, Class Assessments, Small and Large Group Discussions, Shared- Learning Discussions, Artwork Critique Lessons, Elements of Art and Principles of Design Demonstrations, Body of Evidence Presentations, Master Artists Video Exhibitions, Stop-Motion Animation Presentations, Video Art Sub Plans, and again the End-of-the-Year Art Show Student Expositions.

When communicating with other teachers from different schools about how I’ve used VoiceThread, Word, PowerPoint, Schoology and other technology software programs in my Art Room, they are often quite surprised about the grade levels I’m teaching it to, and the level of difficulty of each technology I’m teaching them. My first year working with VoiceThread was a trial run with a few video lessons throughout the year, going out to just my 4th and 5th grade students. However, each year of using VT has opened the door to teaching it to younger and younger grade levels, and now, just four years later, I use VoiceThread with grades 1-5 and they absolutely love it. Let’s face it, our younger generation adapts much quicker to most technology, and as their educator, I’m just preparing them for their future. I’d probably find some way to use the technology with Kindergarten if I could get computer devices in their hands, but for now I’ll just focus on the 1-5 grades.

Being the Art teacher allows me to see every student, which is awesome, but like most elementary special area teachers, I only have each class in my Art Room once a week. When students come see me every second counts and it is with the technology element of VoiceThread and other software programs I work with that extremely helps utilize each second of every art lesson. VoiceThread may come into play with an Introduction and Demonstration video on student’s devices, depending on where each student is in the current art assignment. For those several students who finish earlier than others, I have setup the next video art lesson in VoiceThread, which they usually access the link through Schoology. Although the video is not a full lesson in its entirety, it is approximately a 1-3-minute video of me explaining and demonstrating how to begin the next art lesson. Within each intro. video I explain what the new assignment is, the type of medium we will be using, the interesting subject matter we will focus on, and the first few steps needed to begin the new assignment. It is never enough for a full lesson description, but that is why I am there as their Art instructor, to facilitate and work with every student equally and to help make them a successful individual in my Art Room.

I’ve also setup VT videos reminding students what to remember during the “art process”, or what we also call Student Work Time during Art. This VT video acts as a checklist for the students, and most often it makes for a better outcome for the entire class. My pre-recorded Assessment VT videos are viewed either at the end of each lesson, or at the end of our art units, and they incorporate questions for the students to ask their classmates in both Small and Large Group Discussions. Our student computer devices are equipped with a camera, and each student takes a photo of their artwork in two stages: the process stage and the finished stage. We do this for keeping track of each student’s Body of Evidence, or student portfolio. This VoiceThread portfolio can be viewed by all classmates for Artwork Critique purposes, and other types of Shared-Learning Discussions. Students also need to be reminded of our Art terminology (Art Word Wall), and VoiceThread gives me the opportunity to create a pre-recorded video of the Elements of Art and Principles of Design, which students may open and reference at any time.

In Art we mention a numerous amount of Master Artists throughout the year, and once again VoiceThread can be utilized to create a presentation for students to learn some art history about each of our master artists we acknowledge. As their Art teacher, I find VoiceThread a much better tool to show the class information about Master Artists and the many artworks each Master Artist has produced. Each student can access this information on their own computer device, rather than trying to view one decent size poster hanging on my front board or looking up at a PowerPoint I’m displaying on the large white screen, which is sadly frozen on one slide, before I switch to the next slide.
As exciting as all the above data may be, the next bit of information may peak your interest even more. Stop-Motion Animation, Video Sub Plans, and Art Show-student presentations are some of my favorite discoveries while using the VoiceThread program.

Having once taught graphic design, animation, web design, and game development to high schoolers for 16 years, I knew I had the confidence to learn new technology. When our school received our devices a few years ago I jumped at the chance to start implementing them in my lessons. After noticing what each program consisted of, I started incorporating new art assignments to each grade level. I taught Stop-Motion Animation to grades 4 and 5 the first year we had devices but realized the younger grades could also be taught similar techniques for simpler animations. MovieMaker and VoiceThread were the key tools to make these Stop-Motion Animations come to life. When I became more comfortable working in VoiceThread I started thinking about video art lessons, which quickly made me think about Video Sub Plans. I’m now remembering when I was a student in school, and how much I would have loved to watch a Sub Plan video that my teacher had left for us. Nothing against substitutes, because they work extremely hard at what they do, but as a student, having a special area class such as Art once a week, I always hoped to see my Art teacher each time, and a pre-recorded video of that person is the “next best thing” to the actual teacher. It would have also been a great feeling as a young student because I would have realized the extra time and effort that the teacher put toward his/her students.

I made one VoiceThread Art Sub Plan and left it for my class the next time I was out, and everyone was quite pleased with the use of technology. The substitute left a note for me saying how happy he was that I created “video instructions” for the students. Plus, the students enjoyed seeing me on their computer devices, explaining the art lessons for the class. I believe one of the student’s comment was that they liked that they could rewind the video and watch what they missed or forgot about the lesson. Since this VoiceThread Sub Plan was a complete success I started to make several new videos for every other time that I would be out. To this day I have over a dozen VT video sub plans, and even if I don’t use them all I like the variety. It’s simple to say that I absolutely love VoiceThread and sharing the technology with my students, and I felt that I could teach this program well enough to the students so that they too could create an awesome presentation of their own to share to the school community. Thus, the Art Show Student Expositions were created. Again, I started this assignment in an earlier year with my 4th and 5th graders, but I currently have grades 1-5 produce video presentations for our Art Show. Grades 1 and 2 have a much simpler version to create, but with the same end goal in mind. I use PowerPoint, MovieMaker, and VoiceThread to impress our Art Show attendees.

*Students photograph each artwork they make and use it in their End-of-the-Year VoiceThread video.

*Students work in PowerPoint to create a “Photoshop-like” digital media creation. PowerPoint has enough (not all) “photoshop” features to do what I wanted the students to do. Manipulating Layers in PowerPoint was certainly the deciding factor to make this student assignment a reality, and the students loved it. All these digital artworks go right into VoiceThread for the students to use in their video portfolio.

*Students occasionally watch VoiceThread videos for the next Art lesson. As I’ve stated before, not every student finishes an art assignment at the same time, and for the students who wish to continue forward to the next art unit, they can open and watch a VoiceThread video I have ready for them and begin that next artwork. I am a huge advocate for Student-Centered Learning, and VoiceThread and other programs I use help make this happen every day in my Art Room.

*Students use MovieMaker to capture several different Stop-Motion Animations, and then they upload those animations into VoiceThread to create one full movie. Students absolutely love movement in Art, and although this assignment incorporates somewhat of a “lost art” of Stop-Motion Animation the students enjoy creating and take pride in their own VT video productions.   

*Even though I infuse technology in many of my art classes, we do thousands upon thousands of traditionally-based artworks each year. My school art gallery is always full of amazing student creations. The technology aspect of the lesson/unit (VoiceThread and other programs) are always mixed into each class, but never really take over the full assignment. I simply use the tool that makes life easier and more comfortable for all of us, and in several situations that tool is VoiceThread.    

*VoiceThread can also be used as a means of communication and critiquing in my Art Room. Students can type, speak, and/or video record themselves with comments, opinions, and advice on so many topics. The above photos are of me within a VT video I made, and I call it “The Summer of Mr. Briggs.” In this VoiceThread video, I share events and special moments of my previous summer, and I ask the students to watch the video in its entirety. Next, I demonstrate how to make comments, and reply to other classroom comments before giving students the assignment. I’d like to mention that this isn’t a full lesson, but rather a mini lesson which leads into the first artwork of the year. The next VoiceThread video (not shown) shows the master artist I’m using, along with the subject matter of the artwork used to help inspire the children’s creativity. We use this master artist video in the same way as the video about me and my awesome summer, but now it pertains more to the artist, the medium the artist used, and the thought behind the example artworks, plus this second mini lesson becomes the start of a critique (small/large group discussions) for the students. I used this method with grades 1-5 and it worked successfully every time. 

*VoiceThread is perfect to collect and create assignment videos of resource photos. Let’s face it, as teachers we don’t want students searching for photos in too many areas on the web. I do use Kiddle, PebbleGo, and Discovery Education, and they are fine and safe for students, however, we can’t always find the photo we need. Creating a VoiceThread video of 20-40 resource images that students can look at on their own device can really help the productivity and inspiration of the art lesson.

*Our school Art Show consists of a couple thousand artworks scattered along the school walls, in every hallway and on every floor, along with several hundred computer devices displaying a mixture of student videos in VoiceThread, that include everything each student has completed all year. I believe it’s the most comprehensive way to use the technology that is placed in front of us. ****

*These are only a few of the many VoiceThread videos I’ve made. I have approximately 50 videos so far, but my video library is constantly growing.

5^th^ Grade Stop-Motion Construction Paper Animation

https://voicethread.com/share/8881020/ ****

4^th^ Grade Stop-Motion Paper & Quarters Animation

https://voicethread.com/share/8880866/ ****

Examples of my Sub Plan Lessons:

https://voicethread.com/share/8881813/

https://voicethread.com/share/8881712/

https://voicethread.com/share/8881697/

Grade 3 – Underwater Walkway – Lesson 3 of 3:

https://voicethread.com/share/8880825/ ****

Grade 5 – Banyan Tree – Lesson 2 of 4:

https://voicethread.com/share/8880921/ ****

I want to quickly mention to everyone that I didn’t stumble on this VT program on my own. My colleagues have been some of the most influential components of my entire teaching career, and some of them also currently use VoiceThread. With the assistance and support of my teaching staff and administration, I’ve gained the knowledge and technical skills to make my career a successful one.    VoiceThread is super easy to use. The only thing it’s missing is an individual’s creative ideas. Simply brainstorm a lesson, design it in nearly any program, and upload it in VoiceThread for everyone to enjoy. If you create one VT video, you’ll create others that follow. I highly recommend incorporating VoiceThread in all classroom settings, subject areas, and lessons. Take it from this “old dog”-after teaching for 24 years, I’m still learning something new, innovative, and valuable every day.

About the Author:

*Jim Briggs teaches Art to grades K-5 at Prettyboy Elementary School in Baltimore, Maryland. He also taught Art, Graphic Design, Animation, Web Design, and Game Development at both Parkville High School and Franklin High School. Before working with his current students, Jim taught Art, Graphic Design, Animation, Web Design, and Game Development at Towson University. You can find him on twitter at @jbriggs_artroom.*

*This is part 3 of our Game-Based learning series. You can check out part 1 and part 2 here.

The Ultimatum Game is popular in Economics and Psychology courses but it can be applied to a variety of different course subjects like History, Math, and Literature. Below, you will see a few examples of how this game can be used in different educational contexts on VoiceThread.

How does the game work?

The ultimatum game can be played between two players or two teams of players. The mechanics of the game are simple: one side decides how to split a sum of money between both sides and the other side can either accept or reject the offer. Let’s say that side 1 is tasked with dividing a sum of \$10. They decide to keep \$7 and give side 2 the remaining \$3. If side 2 accepts the offer, each side receives their amount. If side 2 rejects the offer, neither side receives any money.

The Ultimatum game is fundamentally about fairness and equality. It helps quantify how much inequality side 2 is willing to accept and at what point they revolt. The game can be played as a one-off decision or an iterated (repeated) game with rounds. The game can be played in isolation or as part of a larger competition between the groups.

One-off version: In this version, side 1 decides how to split the money and side 2 accepts or rejects the offer. After both sides make their choice, the game ends.

Iterated version: In this version, side 1 and side 2 make their choices, the money is awarded, then the teams continue to round 2 and make choices again. This version allows for as many rounds as needed for both sides to start to recognize patterns in the game. After a series of rounds, both sides should begin to see the cut-off point where a specific dollar amount will be accepted or rejected.

Group version: In this version, the sides are not simply competing against each other but against other teams as well. After the specified number of rounds, you can tally up the totals for side 1 and side in each group and compare their totals to the total “winnings” for the other groups. This version promotes more equality and fairness in the decision making process because too many rejections will decrease the totals for both sides in the larger competition.

This game can be created easily on VoiceThread. You can create a VoiceThread with the instructions and enough slides for each group to play their game. Simply upload your slides and record your comments, then drag and drop your VoiceThread into your group!

So how can The Ultimatum Game work in different academic subjects?

History

Throughout history, groups in power have made decisions that impact groups with less power. We see examples of this when learning about colonialism, governmental systems, trade negotiations, the legislative process to name just a few examples. To use The Ultimatum Game with history classes, decide which role side 1 will play and which role side 2 will play. Maybe side 1 plays the role of government leaders and side 2 plays the role of the people in the country or maybe they each represent different groups from the lessons you are teaching.

Let’s take a look at an example from U.S. history. In this example, side 1 is the King of England and side 2 represents the American colonists in 1773. Side 1 is tasked with deciding how to divide the share of money made from the sale of tea and side 2 has to decide to accept or reject the split. Side 1 (the King) records their choice as a comment on slide 1 of the VoiceThread being used for their game.

Once they have recorded their decision, side 2 (the colonists) decide to accept or reject it. After the specified number of rounds, the players discuss the game and analyze their decisions on the final slide of the VoiceThread. This discussion can then be guided to compare the mindset of the colonists in the game to the actual events leading up to the Boston Tea Party. Letting your students role-play each side can help bring otherwise dry historical facts to life.

Math

This activity can be a stand-alone math lesson or it can be used with the example above in a cross-disciplinary lesson. Students can play The Ultimatum Game and record the values for each round. They can then create a chart or graph and plot all of the data points. Students can upload their graphs to a VoiceThread and discuss their findings. Teachers can help them analyze ways to maximize the totals for each round and for the full game. This can be coupled with lessons on rate of change, percentages, statistics and more.

Literature

Many of the novels students read in school deal with themes of inequality, conflict, and the choices that inform the character’s decisions. Whether your students are reading Animal Farm, Jane Austen, Boxers and Saints, Lord of the Flies or A Tale of Two Cities, The Ultimatum Game can help shine a light on the motivations of the protagonists, antagonists and everyone in between. You can have the students role play the different characters while they play the game around those central themes. Understanding the motivations of the characters can help students relate to the decisions these characters make and empower students to inhabit the story through their avatars in the novel. Using the final slide in the VoiceThread for discussion of these themes can add a game element to your lesson.

This game has its roots in Economics and Psychology courses, so those teachers can use this game to explore the themes in their own ways too. Setting up the game can be the same process regardless of your subject area, but playing around with the different versions can make the lessons more engaging and fun for everyone.

Let us know if you try gamifying your lessons with The Ultimatum Game! We would love to feature your lesson on our blog.

*This is part 2 of our Game-Based Learning series. You can check out part 1 here: Doodle Games.

In the days before technology empowered educators, the phrase “pop quiz” would instill fear in the hearts of students. Students didn’t like pop quizzes because they didn’t have time to prepare. They were simply assessments, that usually counted toward a student’s grade, and were all anxiety but no fun. This no longer needs to be the case. With VoiceThread, you can create pop quiz games using visuals that turn a boring assessment into a fun game.

The concept is simple: Create a VoiceThread explaining the rules of the game to your students. At random times throughout the week, add a slide related to something your students have learned and ask them about it. This simple format can lead to a wide range of assessments. Here are just a few ideas you can try:

Math

We’ve all seen the different “brainteasers” on social networks that ask us to add apples, bananas and various other objects together. These brainteasers are actually just algebra problems, simple arithmetic or another branch of math disguised as a brainteaser.

Image source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

For this type of activity, you can simply:

1. Create a slide with the rules of the game and record your instructions on that slide.
2. Turn on comment moderation for this VoiceThread.
3. Drag and drop this VoiceThread into your class group.
4. A random times throughout the week, upload a slide like one of the images above into that VoiceThread.
5. Record your question about the image right on that newly uploaded slide. For this math example, the question might simply be “what is the answer in the final equation?”
6. As students reply with their answers, you will see the timestamps for each of their comments. Then award points to the first few students with the correct answer.

History

Many students notoriously struggle with geography. If you add an image of a country, or a map for them to label with geographic features like rivers or mountain ranges, you can create a quick and easy quiz game to motivate them in ways that a simple worksheet might not. You can also try uploading an image of a famous historical figure and ask the students a specific question about them.

Image Source: http://mahmoudfx.com/ 

Image source: https://longreads.com/

For this type of activity, you can simply:

1. Create a slide with the rules of the game and record your instructions on that slide.
2. Turn on comment moderation for this VoiceThread.
3. Drag and drop this VoiceThread into your class group.
4. A random times throughout the week, upload a slide like one of the images above into that VoiceThread.
5. Record your question about the image right on that newly uploaded slide. For this history example, the question might simply be “Use the Doodle tool to circle 3 countries and name each of them” or “Who is the person in the picture and why is she famous?”
6. As students reply with their answers, you will see the timestamps for each of their comments. Then award points to the first few students with the correct answer.

Language Arts/Foreign Language

For a quick and easy assessment of vocabulary, grammar or spelling, try adding a slide with a mistake or two. See if your students can use the doodle tool to correct the mistake in their comment. This could work for students who are native speakers learning grammar rules or students who are learning a new language.

For this type of activity, you can simply:

1. Create a slide with the rules of the game and record your instructions on that slide.
2. Turn on comment moderation for this VoiceThread.
3. Drag and drop this VoiceThread into your class group.
4. A random times throughout the week, upload a slide like one of the images above into that VoiceThread.
5. Record your question about the image right on that newly uploaded slide. For this language example, the question might simply be “Use the Doodle tool to circle any punctuation and spelling mistakes and record the sentence the way it should look.”
6. As students reply with their answers, you will see the timestamps for each of their comments. Then award points to the first few students with the correct answer.

For any of these subjects, you can keep a running tally of the scores either as a text comment on each slide, or you can upload a leaderboard slide like the one below:

These types of games can be scaled up to any level of education. If you teach at a medical school, you may want to include images of an x-ray or visible symptoms of an illness and ask your students to diagnose the problem they see in the image. If you teach music, you may want to show a staff with notes and ask your students to identify notes that aren’t in the key of the song. You can even upload audio files of a particular song and ask students to identify the composer.

You are only limited by your imagination and your students might just thank you for making learning more fun by adding game elements like this to your course.

If you try one of these games, drop us a note and let us know! We would love to feature your lesson on an upcoming blog post.

What’s New

Interactive Video Commenting

Now you can insert your comments into a video exactly where you want them. Comments will appear in the video’s timeline as a small blue nib, allowing you to see where others have inserted them as well. The best part is that you don’t have to learn anything new. It just works.

Pause While Recording

While you’re recording audio or video in VoiceThread, you might need a quick break. Now you can pick up right where you left off! After you click on “Stop Recording,” just take your break and then click on “Record More” to keep going.

Monthly Reporting

At the start of every month, administrators for School and University Licenses now receive an email detailing how VoiceThread has been used over the past month. This is a great way to see at a glance where your members are using VoiceThread most successfully and keep all of your information up to date.

Accessibility

We strive to be accessible to all types of learners and participants. By design VoiceThread already offers multiple means of engagement, representation, action, and expression, but there is always more we can do. With an updated VPAT and WCAG 2.0 AA compliance, we can better ensure that everyone can succeed with VoiceThread.

Security

Security and infrastructure improvements are always ongoing at VoiceThread. This year, in addition to regular patches, updates, and maintenance, we have focused on faster load times and processing, converting every single VoiceThread page to use HTTPS only, and completing our full transition from Flash to HTML5.

What’s Next?

Automatic Captions

Automatic speech-to-text captioning will soon be available to all Enterprise License holders with the Platinum Service Tier. There is no administrative workload, no jobs to approve and manage, and no long wait times for users. Every single audio or video recording your users create will be captioned and available within minutes.  The Automatic Caption Service is a set-and-forget feature.

Contact us if you are interested in upgrading to the Platinum Service Tier.

Mobile App

Version 4 of the VoiceThread mobile app is on its way! With a fresh look, more sharing options, increased stability and reliability, and more accessibility options, it will make VoiceThreading on the go much easier and more flexible.

New Assignments

We’ve been telling you about courses and assignments for a while now, and we’re proud to say that we are moving right along!  Soon we will have the “New Assignments” available for LTI-integrated institutions to try out.

• ​Greater variety of assignment types and more collaborative options between students
• More assessment flexibility
• Enhancement of existing assignment types based on your feedback
• Streamlined workflows for both instructors and students
• Tighter mobile integration

LTI 1.3

If you already use VoiceThread in your learning management system, then the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) standard is what makes that possible. Version 1.3 of the LTI standard is in development now, and VoiceThread is an early adopter. This will offer deeper LMS integration, more rostering transparency, and even some brand new features. We should be ready for some beta testers by the end of 2018!

Threaded Commenting Update

We’re updating the button for creating a threaded comment. Instead of the branching icon, it will look like a regular reply icon. Nothing about how this feature works will change, and the simpler button should make replying to a comment in VoiceThread much clearer.

Game-based learning is one of the most effective ways to get students excited about learning. Educators have been experimenting with games as learning tools for decades, but it isn’t always easy to design games using online tools. VoiceThread is not a gaming platform, but with a little creative lesson planning you can design activities that take advantage of gaming principles. Over the next few weeks, we will be showing different ways you can use these game-based learning principles for a variety of educational tasks. This post will explain how you can use VoiceThread to create simple games using the doodle tool to assess fact recall.

You can access the doodle tool once you start an audio or webcam comment on your VoiceThread. This tutorial will show you how it works:

Once you begin your audio or webcam comment, you can select different color pencils and toggle off the fading lines so they will remain on your slide for the duration of your comment.

Take a look at this VoiceThread to see doodle games for three different subjects (Geography, Math, Foreign Language):

Creating these types of games is simple. You only need to:

1. Create slides using PowerPoint, Keynote, Word or any other document software you have on your computer.
2. Upload those slides to your VoiceThread.
3. Go to your playback settings and turn on comment moderation so the students cannot see each others’ answers.
4. Record your instructions and demonstrate how it will look.
5. Share the VoiceThread with your students.

Your students can then record their audio or webcam comments, choose their pencil color and decide if they want to toggle off the fading lines. They can trace their way from answer to answer. Once your students have completed the activity, you can either reveal their comments by clicking on the “closed eye” in their comment bubble or give them feedback on their answers using the private reply feature.

You may also want to tally the correct answers and post a slide that can serve as a leaderboard:

Games can be a fun way to assess factual knowledge and with VoiceThread, it is easy to do!

What separates good interaction from transformational interaction? Authentic engagement between people – student to teacher and peer to peer, not student to computer. We’re always working to make those interpersonal interactions easier in a VoiceThread.

Now you can insert your comments into a video exactly where you want them. Comments will appear in the video’s timeline as a small blue nib, allowing you to see where others have inserted them as well. The best part is that you don’t have to learn anything new. It just works.

You also have the option to pause while you are recording and then pick up that same comment right where you left off. After you click on “Stop Recording”, just click on “Record More” to keep going.

Let VoiceThread bring your online conversations to life by moving beyond text-only comments. Use your voice, video, and integrated annotations to engage and connect your students, person to person.

This is a guest post by educator and VoiceThreader, Preeti Singh.

Technology has revolutionized the world. The current generation of students learn better when they are taught with the aid of technology. There are numerous benefits in using technology, and teachers have to learn to apply it to their advantage in “doing things differently” and not just “doing different things.” I love technology and look for various tools to ‘hook’ my students into learning. One of the tools that I really like using with my students is VoiceThead.

Here are some of the ways I have used Voicethread in my teaching:

I started off the year by creating a Growth mindset for my students. When a student possesses a growth mindset, they can look at tasks with a “go-getter” attitude and are able to bounce back from challenges with an optimistic point of view. When they fail at something they understand that they can use that experience to learn new ways to achieve growth towards a goal. In this voice thread they talk about the occupation they would like to have when they grow up. Secondly, how they will work hard to overcome obstacles to reach their goals.

Growth mindset VoiceThread

Next, during our fantasy unit we learned about Greek Mythology and each student researched the Greek God of their choice for their presentation.

Greek Mythology 

For Language Arts, each student was given a grammar word to illustrate and explain it with a sentence.

Grammar Words

The most exciting voice thread was when we celebrated cultural diversity in our classroom. We are all Americans but represent a culture that is unique to everyone. We had an Ethnic Food Festival where each student researched their heritage and then brought food from the country that their parents or ancestors came from.

Ethnic Food Festival 

Using Voice thread has been very rewarding for my students and me. In the words of Bill Gates, “Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.”

Teaching is my passion especially when I integrate it with technology.

About the Author

Preeti Singh is a fourth grade teacher at Livingston Park Elementary School in North Brunswick. She has a Bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and a Master’s degree in Education from Walden University, with a specialization in integrating technology in the classroom.  She has also worked towards graduate credits in Math Education at Rutgers University. Preeti has a passion for integrating technology in the classroom and is always finding creative ways to teach her students. She is in the process of pursuing a Google Educator Certification. You can find her on twitter at: @preetisingh65 and @LPFantastic4th

This is a guest post by History teacher and VoiceThreader, Gerald G. Huesken Jr.

The great Polish-born American rabbi and Jewish leader Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote that, “Speech has power. Words do not fade. What starts out as a sound, ends in a deed.” In the course of my educational career, when given the option between the written word and the spoken word, I have always found that the spoken word tends to carry more weight, meaning, and depth of understanding for my students then the traditional written reflection or research paper. As a high school instructor, providing power behind student “voice” is something that has often been a consideration with the projects and assignments I assign, while also trying to broaden my student’s academic horizons and experiment with emerging educational technology.

It is with these aspects in mind, that I have made VoiceThread one of the specific resources within my 21st Century classroom for promoting student voice and re-engaging my students in projects that needed a certain level of rejuvenation. I was introduced to VoiceThread during a graduate class I was taking and was intrigued by its blending of visual and audio elements. After some trial and error, I made VoiceThread a part of a traditional written assigned I give to my 10th and 11th Grade Honors World History students as part of their Semester Book Review Project.

See more of my Semester Book Review Project via my teacher website here.

In this project, students select a work of international historical fiction or non-fiction and consider how it relates back to our course content over the length of the semester. Historical insights, personal reflections, and unique historical discoveries all play a role in the student’s final discussion of the book, which they do via the VoiceThread platform. The result has been a much deeper discussion of student work and thought and a more enjoyable grading experience for me.

See some sample student projects via the following links =

* Cera’s project on The Lady and the Unicorn

* Alex’s project on Guns, Germs, and Steel

* Lauren’s project on 1215: The Year of Magna Carta

As a 21st Century educator, I highly recommend the use of the spoken word in student projects whether that is through public speaking, podcasting, or digital recording. Utilizing the spoken word gives student more of a direct ownership over their work in an age were traditional writing has become less engaging as well as the desire for higher quality of and demonstration of student understand. When a student put their voice to a project or topic, it carries power. VoiceThread serves as a perfect tool in this regard. As Rabbi Heschel said, speech truly does have far reaching power…

About the Author:

Mr. Gerald G. Huesken Jr. is a Government and Economics and World History teacher at Elizabethtown Area High School in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. A veteran of over a decade in the classroom, Mr. Huesken is a graduate of Shippensburg University and holds a Masters degree in History from Millersville University. Currently, he is concluding a second Masters degree program through Wilkes University in Online Education and is perusing a digital teacher certification from the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Feel free to connect with Mr. Huesken via LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter at @MrHuesken.

This is a guest post by educator and VoiceThreader, Curtis Izen.

In my online and f2f business information courses, I have used VoiceThread for a variety of assignments. This includes an “ice breaker” , transforming discussion boards, group PowerPoint, individual research assignments to be shared for the entire class to learn from, and using comment moderation in a Microsoft Excel assignment.

Through all these assignments, I created the initial VoiceThread. It was the students task to comment on slides within. I found that by giving them the foundation, commenting would be rather intuitive. I continued this approach, but wanted the students to take a more dynamic methodology. I tasked them to create their own VoiceThread from scratch; subsequently sharing it with the entire class.

The assignment I proposed was a semester long project, with 2 distinct requirements. For the first half of the term, they were asked to research and write a rigorous research paper on a topic of their interest (in my case it was technology). Once their paper was graded, the students were then asked to create their own VoiceThread on the same topic they researched. Since I wasn’t giving them the initial VoiceThread to comment on, I wanted to come up with a pedagogy that would be helpful for both the entire class and themselves.
Their first instructions were to create a PowerPoint presentation which would be displayed in the lobby of the school. They could include mashups, but not any voiceovers (VoiceThread doesn’t carry these over when created).

Once they completed their PowerPoint, they saved the file in PDF format (this works best when converted to VoiceThread). The next step for the students was to create a VoiceThread. On the menu page of my LMS, I created a button linked to their VoiceThread home page (The student first needs to be in a VoiceThread within their LMS or they will be asked to sign into VoiceThread). Once they are at their homepage, they can click on the “Create” link. Subsequently, they click on “Add Media” and choose their saved PDF file. After a short period, the VoiceThread gets generated.

Once the VoiceThread is created, students can now edit their slides by rearranging, deleting or even inserting new slides that may have been missed.  Commenting in video or voice (no text), doodling and multi-slide (M/5) comments were encouraged making the VoiceThread engaging.  The final step for the students was to share their VoiceThread with the entire class.  View and Commenting are active, but editing is not enabled so other students are unable to modify the content. 

At this time, the entire class can start to see everyone’s VoiceThread populate.  The last requirement for all students was to comment on 2 other VoiceThreads (they need to comment first on VoiceThreads that have no initial comments).  I require that the last slide of everyone’s VoiceThread be a comment slide (I supply the .jpg) to make it consistent across the board.

I have found this assignment to be a creative and effective way for students to complete a semester long project.  If you are looking for ways to give your students greater control of VoiceThread, having them own it could be the solution. 

About the Author:

This is a guest post by 3rd Grade Teacher and VoiceThreader, Traci Blazosky.

Every year, my students celebrate Major League Baseball (MLB) day. This day happens in my classroom on opening day for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The entire day is devoted to baseball related activities that all align with the Common Core. For ELA, we read a poem by Ernest L. Thayer, titled Casey at the Bat and complete a comprehension activity. In math, students complete a MLB stadium number challenge in which they solve problems involving the four operations and translate information from a chart. To test their geography skills, students are challenged to use a map of the US to locate and label the American League and National League ballparks.

My favorite activity of the day, though, is the MLB Franchise collaborative project. For this project, students must demonstrate creative thinking as they plan, design, and work to establish a new MLB franchise. The geography activity is important for this project, as it helps guide their planning. Seeing where there are no ballparks is key when pitching their idea to the MLB Commissioner. Working in small groups, students use laptops to research where they may want to locate their ballpark. They take into account the area and characteristics/features of the state. From this point, colors and mascots are chosen based on their research. Students then divide tasks, and begin the process of creating their logo. Discussion on promotions to draw a crowd take place, and then the final step is to write a persuasive letter to the MLB Commissioner in hopes of becoming the next new franchise.

When the planning and creating process is complete, it’s time to publish. Voicethread has been my go-to tool for sharing my students’ projects for the last seven years. What better way to publish work for an audience and enable students to hear feedback from others than by using Voicethread? The students uploaded their images with ease, and began recording. The process was quick and easy. Now, they wait in eager anticipation to see who the winner will be.

Voicethread allows my students to share their voice and grow as fluent readers. Recording has brought many of my most passive students out of their shell, and has boosted their self- confidence when reading for an audience.

Please check out our Voicethread below, and vote for your favorite team!

About the Author:

Traci Blazosky is a third grade teacher at Clarion Area School District. She is also an adjunct instructor for the Instructional Media graduate program at Wilkes University of PA. She is a STAR Discovery Educator, and was named a Discovery Educator Guru in “Creative Construction with Multimedia.” In 2013 she received the Academy of Arts and Sciences BAMMY Award for Elementary Classroom Teacher, and in 2009 received the PAECT Teacher of the Year award. Traci has a passion for technology and education, and loves exploring new technology for meaningful use in the classroom. You can find her on Twitter at: @kti_traci.