Forums > VoiceThread U
“Best practices for creating and managing VoiceThreads in a classroom setting.”

Setting up students’ accounts:
“If you’ve got a really large group that you want to invite and don’t feel like adding them all to your friends list, (contacts importing is coming;) you have another option. You can make your VoiceThread public but ‘not listed’ then take the sharing link from the end of the Thread and just e-mail it to as many people as you like. This means that the Thread won’t be visible in our public browse section, or in any search results but anybody who gets the link will be able to see and contribute to it.

….even if a Thread is unlisted, and embedded on another site, we still need all commenters to register before they comment. It’s an inherent requirement of our system because we are a secure system where you can carefully dictate exactly who can see and comment on your Threads.

Here’s a link to a tutorial on Sharing“

10 min. – What’s a VoiceThread: http://voicethread.com/#c28.b783.i9610\par

01 min. – VoiceThread: http://voicethread.com/#c28.b8381\par

01 min. – Zoom Feature: http://voicethread.com/#c28.b783.i9610\par

01 min. – The Doodler: http://voicethread.com/#c28.b711.i61849\par

03 min. – Video Doddling http://#c28.b21651.i122786\par

02 min. – Telephone Commenting http://voicethread.com/#q.b29096\par

02 min. – Presentations: http://voicethread.com/#c28.b23349.i137776

01 min. – Identities: http://voicethread.com/#c28.b11932\par

01 min. – Groups & Tags: http://voicethread.com/#c28.b11229.i75687\par

01 min. – Comment Moderation: http://voicethread.com/#c28.b718\par

[23 min. total]

Additional Tutorials on VoiceThread:
Embedding VoiceThread: http://voicethread.com/#c28.b805.i401139
Microphone Setup for Windows XP: http://voicethread.com/#c28.b415.i3143
Microphone Setup for Mac: http://voicethread.com/#c28.b416.i3138
VoiceThread’s WordPress Plugin Tutorial: http://voicethread.com/#c28.b4643.i36244

Other VoiceThread Introductions:
VoiceThread on TeacherTube.com: PPT slides for a self-pace intro to VoiceThread (3:32 min.)

Additional Sites Mentioned:
http://docs.google.com
http://scribd.com
http://buzzword.com
http://box.net
http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/Directory/Tools/media.html
http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/warholizer.php
http://www.voki.com/

Examples:

https://voicethread.com/#q+museum.b98471.i500641
This is included as a very clear, brief explanation of Web 2.0. [I found that, YES, I was able to open a word processing page to type these notes as the Voice Thread played on.]
Definition #2 uses “LibraryThing,” which appears in the sidebar atahsifo.wikispaces.com.(What we lack is the interaction of others, hopefully as teachers, parents and students become more involved with Web 2.0 activities our network will develop.)

In education we have often focus on the re-telling of content more so than creation of new content. Web 2.0 moves us further from “teacher as guru” to sharing class as an active learning experience for teacher and students. Remember the thought that we need to approach students as producers of content. [Insert Alice’s bit here.]

“Tech Museum Virtual Workshop” https://voicethread.com/#q+museum.b43705.i229417
Why do I include this? I felt that this thread is important to today’s training because it demonstrates a step beyond in project creation and dissemination – a possible next step.
This also reminds us that other organizations and peoples are actively, deeply involved in teaching – and that they are networking to reach a broad range of learners.

ESOL: an example of distance learning showing that a single teacher can also reach a broad audience. Reflection question.
http://voicethread.com/#q+esol.b42094.i220636

Different Types of Activities

Homework Check: Behind the scenes with comment moderation on – As students enter their responses only the teacher and the student creator can hear/see it. The teacher chooses when to activate / publish / open the response to group view. The teacher can decide to display correct or best responses – maybe 3 out of the 30 responses from a class – as reinforcement / review / reward .

Math: Homework Check: What’s wrong with this answer? https://voicethread.com/#q+algebra.b10504.i71766
Science: Extra-credit opportunity
https://voicethread.com/#q+science.b46120.i241153
Language Arts: an elementary example – that shows parents the teacher’s expectations for homework. “Quality Work – Handwriting Poems”
https://voicethread.com/#q+homework.b13339.i84171
History: A cartoon as prompt for reflective comments: https://voicethread.com/#q+homework.b51648.i269458

Teachers share best practices:
The general example invites others to contribute, so it can continue to expand – a higher level on the Web 2.0 pyramid as shown in https://voicethread.com/#q+museum.b98471.i500641.
General: “High School Web Pages – Explore these high school websites and see how they are used for instruction, remediation and enrichment.” https://voicethread.com/#q+high+school.b40029.i210076
A non-collaborative example…History: “Developing Literacy Rich History Classrooms”
https://voicethread.com/#q+high+school.b20464.i116475