Teacher/student-friendly presentation and digital-storytelling tool
Community Review for VoiceThread
My Take
VoiceThread is a platform for students to showcase learning; this is the reason for the low scores on 'Pedagogy' and 'Supports' above. It is a good vehicle for learning the elements of a good digital story - especially if you take time for students to analyse each other's work - but it's not a learning tool per se.
Overall, this is an effective and appealing way for students to share learning and engage an audience.
How I Use It
I first started using VoiceThread as a Spanish teacher (elementary grades) because it was a great venue for students to combine oral and written language. I had them retell stories we read in class, create presentations about family or home, and do mini research projects. As a middle school teacher, I have had students use VoiceThread to do book talks/presentations, do projects on urbanisation and adaptation, and projects about elements of literature.
It's simple and straight forward to use. Students like it because they can easily redo things and fix mistakes. I always require both text and voice to go with images. I particularly like that students can comment on each other's presentations.
Our school got student accounts for everyone, so set up is super easy.
As with most digital tools, I present this as an option (not a required tool).