Hanging by a Thread

Written by: Danielle Abernethy
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Last week I promised you a gem from one of the sessions I attended, and told you that you’d have to take a gamble on whether or not I post it. I am so sorry to leave you hanging by a thread, but I’m ready to start sharing. This first gem has become quite popular over the past year or so. It takes presentations and digital storytelling to a completely new level.

VoiceThread is a great tool to share your knowledge and experiences.

I’m talking about VoiceThread, which is a fantastic tool. We used it to wrap up our field trip in Washington DC, to see what they learned about either a monument, netTrekker and how to use it, or about netTrekker Village. Since we were at a very busy, fast paced conference, I was extremely pleased with the number of teachers that responded. I went ahead and paid the $3 for a downloaded version of the field trip and then loaded it to netTrekker Village.

I just mentioned a price, so some would ask if this is a free tool or a subscription tool. It’s actually both. There are some free aspects, and then there are some that are based upon a subscription. You can learn more about the type of accounts they have on their site. You can even see examples of how to use Voice Thread in your own classroom in their library.

Another thought on how to use this goes back to training. What if you took screenshots of your favorite product, such as netTrekker, and asked for the teachers to comment on how they would use that feature, or leave a tip for a best practice, or even post a question on something else they want to learn? You can have the participants in the workshop comment and share, and continue the learning experience from each other.

Let’s give it a shot. Here is a VoiceThread I started on netTrekker. Leave your comments on the different features and share your knowledge and insight with each other. Let’s see how many comments we can get on this thread. All you need to do is sign up for a free account. Then you need to select if you want to leave a written comment or a voice comment. You can also mark up the page while you comment by using the marker to point out a few things or highlight something of interest. Don’t be shy. Have fun with it and experiment. That’s the best way to learn.

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