Learning About Voicethread (14)

In this weeks readings, I really enjoyed learning about the program, Voicethread, and how to incorporate it into an ELA classroom. I had been slightly familiar with voicethread before this reading because another student in class had presented it as their digital tool, and therefore I had an idea about how to use it. After reading the article, I realized how beneficial it can be for a classroom, and it's really not very difficult. I took it to be a way to analyze and discuss important aspects of a reading by creating a slideshow of images and audio that the students could create to answer questions or hold discussions about a story. Another cool part about it is you can keep your voicethread private to just your classroom. This allows students to be able to listen and watch other student's voicethreads and learn from them and use them as review. Another aspect discussed in the article was to make sure that students move beyond just events in the story and focus more on critically analyzing issues that are brought up in the story and how they effect the world they live in. The final aspect that is important is to make sure that as a teacher you allow time for in class discussion. By doing this, students are able to present their voicethreads to the class and also use them for discussion in the class.