TASK 3- VOICE THREADS

1 point for reading about VoiceThread and exploring some of the many examples you found out there. Pay particular attention to ones on your age level or in your subject area
Today I focused on the Voice Thread areas for Social Studies.  This is an enormous resource and I  enjoyed the 11th grade Reconstruction project by Molly Lynde.  I discovered that VT can reinforce the concept for students to learn a new technology and to find ways to discuss  a topic outside a classroom setting making the assignment more time and user friendly.  What I thought was the most important portion was that voice thread uses speech communication as a "scaffold" to learning.  The famed Russian educator Lev Vygotsky conceived the idea in the early 1920s to use social communication as a scaffold for the process of learning.  The New York Public library has a digital library of 700,000 historical images that is free and a teacher could use any of those to be a prompt for critical thinking questions or to open a new line of discussion.
I played with Fotobabble and discovered that it would be a great way to introduce a new topic to catch the class interest.  I posted one just for fun!

1 point for logging into my example voicethread and leaving a comment. * See instructions below.
I will try to get this completed in early August when I can work with you to figure out the log in issue.

1 point for blogging about this on your blog. Is there any assignment or topic you will use in your class that would work well as a VoiceThread, either for a whole class who comments on one presentation such as the 100 days, or ones where your class would each have their own VT to create.
I am looking for ways to introduce more cooperation and collaboration in the lessons and VT looks like a good one to use. It meets my criteria: simple to do, fun to listen to the other voices, and a quick and easy way to grade an activity (no papers to bring with me).  That being said here is what I want to do this year.  I envisioned a Voice Thread project and the movie "A Beautiful Mind".  The class views the movie and completes research on schizophrenia and how it impacts the life of Noble Prize winner John Nash.  I intend to ask the students to discuss the four symptoms of schizophrenia and have them indicate the one that they feel was the most significant in his life. Voice Thread ,as a tool, allows for great conversation with the class. I hope that a shyer student would feel empowered to make a comment knowing that it can be recorded with confidence and that they have the “do-over” option until they feel the answer is what they wanted to say.  Other potential aspects for me to try would be to summarize a storyline, to include personal reflection about a particular event or character (something about the inflection and tone of the human voice makes it interesting), and to open an opportunity for a debate over a specific topic.  I am very optimistic and will give it a try to change the assignment so that it is more fun for them and fun for me too!


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