VoiceThread Presentations
In a previous lesson for this course, I developed an activity in which students watch videos and use other media sources to research different severe weather events including hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, floods, and droughts. As a final product, students added slides to a classroom slide template in Drive located here. In the initial lesson, students presented their slides in the presentation to the whole class.
Instead of presenting their slides to the class verbally as suggested in the initial lesson, an alternative activity would be to utilize VoiceThread to provide students with an opportunity to share their thinking with the class. VoiceThread is a digital tool that provides students with an opportunity to collaborate and interact digitally around a document, presentation, or image. This activity would be a great way to model for young students how to use VoiceThread effectively in the classroom. Later in the year, with a bit more experience, they could use the tool with more independence.
Note to Teacher:
Instead of presenting their slides to the class verbally as suggested in the initial lesson, an alternative activity would be to utilize VoiceThread to provide students with an opportunity to share their thinking with the class. VoiceThread is a digital tool that provides students with an opportunity to collaborate and interact digitally around a document, presentation, or image. This activity would be a great way to model for young students how to use VoiceThread effectively in the classroom. Later in the year, with a bit more experience, they could use the tool with more independence.
Note to Teacher:
- This is designed to be a whole group introduction to the use of VoiceThread.
- For this activity, the teacher will need an account, as will each student. If you do not have devices for all students, it may be advantageous to check out a lab or a cart for this activity.
- If you're new to VoiceThread, here's a document that outlines how to get started with VoiceThread.
- Once the students have added all of their content and they have edited it, the teacher will upload the slides to his or her VoiceThread account.
- Students will have their own VoiceThread accounts to leave comments on the classroom slide deck.
- Model for students how to use a device to record their narrative on the slide. The entire group will comment on the slide that they have created.
- Once students have recorded their initial comments, view the VoiceThread presentation whole group so that students can see how their recordings come together to create a presentation.
- Model for students how to leave a comment or question on a slide.
- Encourage students to return to the presentation and leave a comment on another group's slide.
Resources:
Getting Started in the Classroom with VoiceThread:
voicethread.com/media/misc/getting_started_in_the_classroom.pdf
Getting Started in the Classroom with VoiceThread:
voicethread.com/media/misc/getting_started_in_the_classroom.pdf