If you can't talk face to face, it's a great way to interact.
Community Review for VoiceThread
My Take
VoiceThread is a multi-platform app for delivering information or for collaborating. It allows users to give make text or voice comments around some central piece of information, which could be video, images, text. Power Point or Keynote slides can be uploaded into VoiceThread, and commentary added. VoiceThread allows for collaboration over distance. It could be used to flip a classroom. Allowing both spoken voice and typed text comments affords a number of ways for students of various abilities to make use of their strengths.
How I Use It
I have used VoiceThread often to convey information to my staff when it was not possible to meet. I have used it to introduce a project to students when I had to be away from school. In both cases, it was possible for viewers to interact by adding their comments.
Students have created threads in small groups to present their research or to describe a procedure. Other students have been able to comment. Students could post writing, or demonstrate solving a math problem, and gain peer feedback.
Certainly, face to face interaction is hard to beat. But VoiceThread allows conversations to continue beyond the classroom, and it gives those who might not want to contribute in class ways to feel more comfortable doing so, to add thoughts or to ask questions.