Today, we’re pleased to announce the opening of the VoiceThread Digital Library.
The Digital Library is a database of articles about successful VoiceThread projects. Our hope is to create a resource that offers guidance and inspiration for people looking to undertake new projects using VoiceThread. Within each article is a detailed exploration of how these projects were created and what lessons were learned, because success can be replicated if it’s documented. We encourage you to share your VoiceThreads with the community and as this resource grows we’ll be adding categories and a search function to help you find relevant projects.
Here’s a couple articles already in the Digital Library:
Michelle Pacansky-Brock, an Art History Professor at Sierra College, recently completed a thorough assessment of the effects of VoiceThread on the learning experiences of her online students. She will be showcasing these results in presentations at several upcoming venues including MoblEd in Pasadena on April 23 and 24, the Online Teaching Conference in Aptos on June 11 and 12, the Sloan-C Symposium on Emerging Technologies in San Francisco on June 17-19. Michelle is the recipient of the 2007 Sloan-C Excellence in Online Teaching Award and the NISOD Award for Teaching Excellence.
Michelle gives us a glimpse into her findings in her blog post titled “VoiceThreads of Inclusivity“. Here’s an excerpt:
“A total of 101 students were surveyed and 87 responded (an 88% response rate). Out of those who responded, 70% of the students either strongly agreed or agreed that the use of VoiceThread contributed to establishing a sense of community in this class. Community is an important element in fostering a student’s motivation to continue with an online class, as online learners continually struggle with feelings of isolation as they go about their learning experience physically isolated from their classmates and instructor.” (Read more…)
Michelle was also interviewed by Russ Barneveld and Barbara Lebeau, professors from Grand Valley State University in Michigan. They spent time discussing how VoiceThread (from Michelle) “has transformed my online teaching”. Listen to the interview.
We have a new feature: easy Moodle embedding. This is not actually a VoiceThread plugin, it’s a Moodle filter plugin. We are releasing the code to this plugin under the same license as Moodle, which means it is open source. Once the plugin is installed and configured, all you have to do is say [[vt:409]] (for full size) or [[vtsmall:409]] (for small) to embed thread 409 into a Moodle page, resource, etc.
Please see the README.txt file for installation instructions, or just download the plugin in Zip Format or Tgz Format.
We do have additional LMS integration on our roadmap; this is just another step towards making VoiceThread even more useful in the digital classroom.
We’ve added a couple exciting new features to VoiceThread.
Copying/Cloning your VoiceThreads
We’ve had a lot of requests for the ability to copy an existing VoiceThread so that it can be reused with a different group of people or to just create a backup copy. Beginning today you have that ability right on your MyVoice page (in the gear menu), just click ‘Make a Copy’ – and a menu opens for you to title, describe, and choose the comments you’d like to include in the new version. With the ability to copy your existing VoiceThreads it now makes sense for you spend a lot of time and energy creating the highest quality VoiceThreads possible, as you can use them again and again.
iPod/iPhone compatible Exports
You can now easily bring your collaborative VoiceThread with you for on-the-go viewing and presenting. When exporting a VoiceThread, you now have the choice to either download a full sized high resolution archival movie version, or one that has been formatted to go directly onto your iPod or iPhone, or both!
Microsoft Office 2007 file compatibility
We now fully support Microsoft Office 2007 file formats when uploading into your VoiceThreads. Microsoft Photo Story 3 video support coming soon.
We’ve made quite a few interface tweaks as well, all in an effort to make VoiceThread and it’s features easier to use and understand. We appreciate all the feedback we’ve received, it definitely helps direct our development, as we look to further improve VoiceThread. Thank you and please keep it coming! We’ve got more on the way.
We are pleased to announce that we’ve added support for more languages when text commenting, one of our most requested features. Text commenting now supports the Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic and Hebrewscripts. We’ll be also adding support for Asian languages soon. Please keep the great feedback coming in and enjoy!
Update – October 8th 2008: It appears that text commenting in Asian languages is also now working, just as long as you have the fonts installed on your computer. We are looking forward to extending this type of character support for more portions of VoiceThread soon. Until then, happy multi-language text commenting!
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) has integrated a customized version of VoiceThread’s communication platform in an effort to provide a seamless collaborative environment for it’s staff and students. UNC user accounts are automatically authenticated into the platform, providing instant access to VoiceThread. The interface of the collaborative environment also has been built to reflect UNC’s colors and design.
Developed for UNC’s ITS Teaching and Learning group, these custom services are now available to any university or organization. Please read more about them on our Business and Higher Ed Solutions pages.
We would like to sincerely thank the Teaching and Learning group, including Kathy Kyzer, Suzanne Cadwell, and Bob Henshaw. Your guidance in the development of these services has been invaluable.
VoiceThread’s first NECC conference was a big success and we’d like to thank all the people who helped make that happen. Our VoiceThreaders seemed to be everywhere, giving some amazing presentations, some formally scheduled and others seemingly from the tops of soapboxes.
As we stood in our booth we were presented with a steady stream of educators who would start by saying “I just saw this fantastic presentation by [Wes Fryer, Kevin Jarrett, Jodi Meacher, or ‘those MathCast people’ and many, many more] and now I have a few questions for you.” We didn’t have t-shirts or any other gifts for our VoiceThread Corps (perhaps fine chocolates next year?) so I just want give a sincere thanks, we really couldn’t have succeeded without you.
Cheryl Oakes shares a VoiceThread testimonial on her techLEARNINGblog post (excerpt) titled “Assistive Technology goes Mainstream!”:
“I met an occupational therapist recently who explained how a student of hers began using VoiceThread for her school projects. This may not seem remarkable until you learn that the student, although able, would not speak in the classroom. Once VoiceThread was added as a tool in the classroom toolkit, the student was empowered to make changes with much peer support. The student recorded her school projects in VoiceThread, her peers were thrilled to hear her voice. Make change happen for your students in need of these tools.” (Read more…)
VoiceThread has recently partnered with the Ladies’ Professional Golf Association (LPGA) on their just launched LPGA Fanbook feature. LPGA Fanbook allows fans to ask players questions and have the players respond directly to them, all using VoiceThread technology.
From LPGA.com: “LPGA.com has launched its newest feature LPGA FanBook which allows you to ask your favorite players questions through audio or video. Players will then respond to your questions via video or audio. All you need to record an audio message is a telephone and if you want to record video then you can use a webcam or other video recording device.”
We are very happy to announce that VoiceThread has received a 2008 Webware 100 award from Webware, a CNET site. We’d like to thank our users for their support and votes! The 2008 Webware 100 awards recognize the best Web 2.0. sites, services and applications. The Web 2.0 user community cast nearly two million votes in an online voting poll that ultimately selected the winners. Finalists for the 2008 Webware 100 Awards were selected by the editors of Webware.
We’ve done some rigorous back of the napkin math calculations and discovered that our users must have voted for us at ten times the per/user rate of many of our fellow competitors. This confirms what we know already about the people who use our product every day, they share our passion for simplicity and usability, and more human interaction on the web. We have big plans to pursue in the next year and we will continue to rely heavily on our VoiceThreaders for their engagement, advice, and support.
We are very, very happy to announce the availability of Archival VoiceThreads. Downloadable as a widescreen movie, this version of a VoiceThread will play offline, stored on your computer, iPod or other portable device and can be burned onto a DVD or CD. These Archival movies are an exact replica of the content and commentary of any VoiceThread, which include the text commentary, audio commentary, webcam commentary, and also, the animated drawings we call Doodles. This has been our #1 requested feature and has taken quite a bit of work to pull off. To make one, just click the ‘Export’ button when creating/editing your VoiceThread.
Does it look and feel like a VoiceThread? You bet, and portable. Click here (~6.2 mb) to download an example. During a beta test period the export function will only be available to Pro users, at no charge. After this period, 30 per year will be included free with every Pro account. Individual archival exports will be $2.99 for free accounts, with bulk and educator discounts on the way.
