Capturing the Moment with VoiceThread

By George

This is a guest post by educator and VoiceThreader, Andrea Plato.

 

When the bell rings at the end of the day and my students scoot out the door, I often reflect on the events of the day. I think about the discussions, clever comments, and insight my students share. The bad news is I can’t remember exactly what was said in the moment, and I feel like I’ve lost a treasure trove of ideas. I strain my brain trying to recollect the moments that impressed me. With a VoiceThread, I’m able to capture my student’s ideas and conversations in the cloud. In the past, my students have created and presented projects to the class and we just moved on from there. With a VoiceThread, the students and I are both able to reflect on projects more than once. Their projects and presentations are archived and can be replayed like a rerun of a favorite television program.


This year my students created presentations related to a theme found in a chapter of Ray Bradbury’s, The Martian Chronicles. Students created a presentation explaining how the theme was depicted in chapter of their choice using textual evidence. They also created what we called a theme meme because kids love memes and so do I. This included the theme along with an image related to their theme. The next step was for group members to work individually to find an example of evidence of the theme in today’s world. Each piece of evidence came from a different source like movies, songs, newspapers, or photographs.

We used VoiceThread as a presentation tool. Students viewed and offered feedback on the project. Students could hear what themes and messages their classmates felt Ray Bradbury was conveying in each chapter and connections students made to the real world. This also was a chance to see how other groups constructed projects. My students seemed more engaged as they viewed the VoiceThread. Students were impressed with the different options for recording comments. The doodling feature on the video recording was a big hit. The advantage with a variety of multimodal options is that students can personalize how they formulate their responses. My camera shy students chose to type their response.
VoiceThread is an amazing tool. It’s a tool that can enhance any project. I’m excited to find new ways to implement VoiceThread in my classroom.

About the Author

Andrea Plato is a  7^th^ Grade ELA teacher at a gifted and talented magnet school in League City, Texas.