A great interactive tool for student response without paper and pencil.
Community Review for VoiceThread
My Take
VoiceThread is a gem of an educational tool. This website allows teachers to create presentation and students can participate and respond to the presentation. In this manner, teachers can have pre-recorded lessons and activities that can run through a slideshow with audio and/or text. Students have an avatar as well as the teacher in oder to distinguish who is responding and give the students a sense of individuality. This can be used in school with microphones for audio response, or with keyboards, as well as from home via mobile computing device or even through the phone (for audio recording)! What a great too for flipping instruction or having make up work for students who are frequently absent, on medical leave, or in home and hospice. The VoiceThread is there until you delete and can be used throughout the year to review and be a reference for students.
I gave the set up time about 5-15 minutes, because it really depends on the depth of the subject you are covering. It is easy to use, and very easy for students to navigate and work at their own pace. Presentations can be more than one page and paced to play automatically.
How I Use It
I have used voice thread in many subject areas and with various ages of students. With early learners (Grade 1), I have used this to show a story about book care and have students come up with ways that they can use care with their books. Students who had difficulty writing were able to verbally articulate their responses, and were able to state more ways then if they tried to write a response. Older students have analyzed art work and commented on the piece. They are able to annotate over the image using the VoiceThread doodler tool as they respond in order to highlight areas in the image on the screen. When my district move into a 1:1 platform in the future, I look forward to using this as a flipping tool and having students use this more from home. I have even used this for mini professional development in my building in order to keep staff aware of different tech tools and assess their knowledge of the topics covered and have them respond to various questions.