Flipped Tools- Voicethread

Flipped Tools: Voicethread 12 Ways to Use Voicethread in the English Language Arts Classroom

By Kelli Stair

Table of Contents Introduction to Voicethread Strategies to Use with Voicethread Activating Background Knowledge Peer editing for writing revision or project revision Journal or open response alternative Group projects involving multimedia Guided instruction: mini-lessons Connecting a novel to current events Student-created projects or student expert research Thematic discussions Informative, persuasive, descriptive, or narrative essay options Summative Assessments Writing Portfolios Evidence of Student Inquiry

How to get started guide to Voicethread: Step-by-step- screenshot demo

Introduction to Voicethread If you want a collaborative experience designed specifically for multimedia use, www.voicethread.com is the tool for you. Voicethread allows you to upload or link media such as videos, PowerPoint presentations, pictures, audio, and documents into a discussion thread.

Each piece is presented with the opportunity for the teacher and students to offer text, audio, or video commentary. Teachers can create a Voicethread that presents information and, through guiding questions, elicits student responses. Voicethread even has a doodle tool that lets you draw on a picture or video to highlight important information. Doodles disappear as soon as the person’s comments are finished. You can stop video, draw on it to highlight information, and then continue with the video as part of your comment.

Voicethread is one of my favorite technology tools available for free online. With its tagline, “multimedia conversations in the cloud,” Voicethread offers a way to create, present, comment on, and collaborate using multimedia pieces such as images, URLs, video, PowerPoint presentations, and more. Take a look at this screenshot of what a single piece of a Voicethread looks like.

This example is from a preview of child soldiers in Sierra Leone to activate and level background knowledge for students about to read Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone. In addition to this image and the drawing that I’ve done to highlight the teddy bear backpack, flip-flops, and AK-47 that this child is pointing at the camera, you can see my audio commentary box open in the top left corner of the screenshot. My commentary tells students what to look for as they scrutinize the image and gives directions for making a comment themselves. [This particular picture was used to emphasize the visual juxtaposition of child and soldier.]

The other pictures on the screenshot represent the students in my class and the comments they have made in response to the picture and my directions. A common theme to the commentary for this image was how similar the boy looked to the younger siblings of my students, which created a real connection to their lives. Suddenly, this image was no longer about some stranger in another country, but about a kid just like their siblings.

By then allowing commentary, students made and solidified the connection to the main character in the autobiography they were about to read. Just seeing the image isn’t enough; students need the opportunity to connect and state their opinions. It is the commentary that makes the situation real for them. The outrage my students felt at seeing a child with this weapon was staggering. Comments ranged from condemning the rebels and the Sierra Leone military, to wondering where the boy’s parents were, to anger that we- in the United Stateswere doing nothing to help.

Both my comments and student comments can be done via text box, audio, or webcam commentary. This feature opens up the work for students without strong writing skills to still participate with audio or video commentaries. Interestingly, one of the added bonuses in the video commentaries is that students were drafting, practicing, and revising their video commentaries to be perfect- without any prompting from me to do so. The authentic audience of their peers- and being on video- created an environment in which students were selfdirected in the revision process. They often asked each other to watch their video and make suggestions, and the quality of their responses went way beyond what they would do in a journal or as a piece that only I would see.

Each student comment “plays” in succession, from first to last. Students can view everyone’s comments first or post their own comments immediately following the directions. Student comments can also include the doodling tool, allowing them to pinpoint details on an image or in a video. As they comment, they can play, pause, rewind, fast-forward, and draw on the videos as they comment. The drawing is only visible when that student’s commentary is on.

Otherwise, the video plays as the original. As an additional vehicle for usage, the App Store has a Voicethread app available so that students can use their phones to comment.

The benefit of using Voicethread is that you can use images, videos, documents, and other multimedia sources to engage all types of learners. A checklist is effective for some learners; a series of images is effective for others. With a Voicethread, you can do both. The engagement of making comments for an authentic audience- classmates- increases the preparation and presentation of student commentary.

Using Voicethread differentiates by learning style, but also by knowledge base. If a student knows the information, she can make a comment and move on. If the information is new to the

student, he can review the information, rewind the video, and see other people’s comments for further enlightenment before creating his own comment. I’ve often found that a student can explain a difficult concept to another student in a more accessible way than I can. In this way, students have access to the information they need without first having to ask me for clarification. Using the multimedia and student response resources, all students can work towards self-directed learning.

Applications for using this technology tool in the classroom vary, from presenting information to guiding instruction, from revising writing with peer editing to student-created projects. Here are twelve ways to use Voicethread in the English classroom, whether as a flipping tool or an inclass tool.

Activating Background Information As my example voicethread screenshot shows, I’ve used Voicethread to present information to students to activate and supplement their background knowledge of a topic or theme before reading a novel or other piece of text. This strategy is particularly useful for texts with an unknown historical perspective, set in a different country or subculture that may be unfamiliar, or that involve complex technological, scientific, or philosophical knowledge to fully understand.

A variety of media types should be used, particularly images and videos, to develop ideas. Once you’ve gathered a set of informational sources, be sure to scaffold the experience by starting with a poignant media piece that students can connect to personally. Once you’ve hooked them, add informational pieces to develop understanding of the unknown information relevant to the text. Be sure to use your comments to focus students’ attention on the most relevant information to fully comprehending the future reading material. As you add information, bring students up through Bloom’s Taxonomy so that they can think deeply about the text. A carefully crafted progression through Voicethread can bring support through background knowledge to all students.

Another way to use Voicethread to present information is to combine it with teacher-made videos for instructional purposes. In this respect, Voicethread hosts flipped classroom videos with commentary available for students to interact. Students can watch the instructional video or screencast and use the comments feature to ask clarifying questions. Other students can then answer those questions or you can use student question feedback to direct instruction the next day and answer any questions in class. Multiple example problems can be given so that students have many opportunities to use the information that was presented to them.

Voicethread can be a valuable tool for communicating a great deal of information on the students’ time and freeing class time to deepen knowledge, practice skills, correct misconceptions, or partner up students to tutor each other.

Assessing the strategy: If you are supplementing student background knowledge, you may consider using Voicethread to create an interactive KWL chart. The first slide of your voicethread would be a KWL chart with the KNOW section highlighted. In your comment, instruct students to respond with everything they know about the topic. Then instruct them to read or listen to other students’ comments. On the next slide, post the KWL chart with WANT TO KNOW highlighted. Instruct students to ask one or more questions relating to the topic that they are curious about. Students can read each other’s questions. Just like a pre-reading KWL chart, generating background knowledge and questions opens students to receive the information from the multimedia presentation. Continue the next slides with informational

material- a PowerPoint, images, videos, or other documents with questions to focus each student’s attention. On the final slide, post the KWL chart with LEARNED highlighted. Ask students to generate a list of what they learned from the voicethread. You can assess for value of the presentation material by student comments in LEARNED section. You may also ask if there are any additional questions that students have to add information to your voicethread for the future.

Assessing the Student: Student learning can be assessed using the 10 point discussion rubric at the end of this book, a quiz on the information, through informal discussions, or through student products or projects. The KWL chart can also be used as an assessment tool.

Peer editing for writing revision or project revision Using Voicethread for writing or project revision is an organized and effective way of enabling peer editing for and from all students. Since Voicethread allows for text, audio, or webcam comments, students have more options for how they want to give peer revision and how they want to receive it.

One way to use Voicethread for peer revision purposes is to have students collaborate on one Voicethread in writing response groups. Each student would then use the commentary to ask for a particular type of revision from her fellow students. She could use the webcam to read the text out loud and then ask for help with a particular area, such as writing a better hook or needing two more examples for the second paragraph. Response groups would then watch her read aloud and offer advice to revise the things she was looking for. Additionally, students could offer other revision advice based on a grading rubric or their own knowledge.

A second way to use Voicethread for peer revision of writing or projects would be to have students submit their rough drafts to you. As you look through them, you could identify common revision pieces that you want each group to focus on and put them in a Voicethread together.

For example, if five students had problems coming up with examples to support their arguments, you could put them all together. Then, the first “slide” of the Voicethread could be a mini-lesson on whatever the common revision focus is. You could create a document with examples, a screencast, or a video to demonstrate how to do that particular skill, and then assign commentary to all of the students whose papers or projects were on the Voicethread to revise each other’s papers after watching your mini-lesson. In this way, you engage collaborative skills while also encouraging students to revise their own and other’s work. The group as a whole becomes the expert from which to elicit answers although as a teacher, you should make yourself available as well.

As an added piece, you could include a group of students who have mastered that skill already to offer further expert commentary that would help challenged students revise. Using a fellow student as an expert can create a culture of support that encourages helpfulness in other academic and extracurricular areas. Heterogeneous groupings for revision would certainly benefit students who were challenged by the assignment as well as allow students who mastered the skill an opportunity to take their knowledge to the next level by explaining it to others.

Assessing the strategy: A simple student survey after using Voicethread for writing revision would be a good way to assess its effectiveness. Ask students to rate their experience with

respect to ease of use, usability of the technology, and quality and helpfulness of responses.

Ask an open-ended suggestions question to elicit immediate feedback. Also realize that students may not like the strategy the first time around because they are unclear what to do and- particularly in the case of advanced students- how they will be graded. Don’t let negative feedback on the first initiation of the strategy stop you from using student comments to help it fit the learning styles of your learners. Feedback tends to get more positive as the technique becomes more familiar, particularly when asking students to compare writing revision processes with and without Voicethread.

Assessing the student: For student assessment, the rubric at the end could be helpful if slightly modified. Remember that students don’t necessarily have writing revision and peer-editing skills; those must be taught. However, once you know that students are capable of revising each other’s work, Voicethread offers an excellent format for collaboration and compiling revision. Writing response groups could share a group grade based on how well the group helped each individual member revise. Be sure to explain the assessment process before starting the revisions.

Journal or open response alternative Voicethread can be a great alternative to journaling- particularly in an elementary classroombecause it allows audio and webcam responses in addition to written commentary. This feature will help struggling writers make organized thoughts that are critical and analytical without hampering them with the mechanics of writing. While audio and video responses should not completely take over written forms of journaling, it is important to value the ideas of students regardless of their ability to craft those ideas into writing.

One way to use Voicethread as a journaling alternative would be to add a daily journal assignment- via image, video, or document. Since Voicethread is easily and immediately updateable, a new journal topic could be added every day. Whether students use class time or out of class time to complete the journal is completely up to you- flipping this strategy would be just as easy as not flipping it. The consistency, online accessibility, response-style flexibility, and audience authenticity will motivate even reluctant students to participate.

If students have their own Voicethread accounts- available for free with an email address or securely through a Voicethread Pro account- they can maintain a daily journal on Voicethread that pulls media pieces from a main teacher’s Voicethread. Making the media in a Voicethread available for copying is as simple as clicking a box before publishing the Voicethread. As the teacher adds media pieces- images, documents, PowerPoint slides, or videos- students can transfer those pieces to their own Voicethread and comment. For added differentiation and creativity, you could send students on an internet scavenger hunt for a media piece that connects in some way to the thematic focus of the unit. Students could form writing response groups to add commentary to their work.

One fun activity to do with a Voicethread journal would be to have students create alternate identities to comment on their media pieces from different perspectives. Identities can be given different names and pictures and are virtually unlimited. Students could explore how friends or family, critics biased for or against, famous authors, or literary characters would respond to each media piece, perhaps adding a different perspective every day instead of a different media piece. Key standards of identifying and relating author’s purpose is addressed by representing multiple authors over the course of the journal.

Assessing the strategy: Again, a simple student survey can ask students to rate their comfort using, ease of use, and engagement with the strategy. For this assessment, students could be asked to compare using Voicethread for journals to using notebooks. I would definitely ask students to render opinions on other ways to use Voicethread for journals.

Assessing the student: When assessing students, use whatever assessment strategies you would use to assess journals. Rubrics identifying the depth, quality, and quantity of journal entries would be appropriate for holistic grading; a points system could be employed using journals students choose to submit with a participation score for daily activity. Students could even be asked to submit their work and either grade it themselves from a rubric or have their fellow students grade from a rubric. Make sure that whatever grading method you use, it is appropriate to how students are using their journals, and accurately reflects the time and energy students spend on the assignment. For example, if journals are half the students’ class grade, they should take half the time used for the class. Likewise, if students spend half their class and homework time working on journals, the grade should not comprise 5% of their overall grade. Be fair and balance the grade portion with the time and energy students spend.

Group projects involving multimedia The collaborative aspects of Voicethread make it a great tool for creating group projects that involve use of multimedia such as images, videos, documents, and others. Presenting groups projects becomes an easy task as well. Since every student can add his or her own commentary, you no longer end up with one student “speaking” through an entire presentation while the rest of the group holds the poster board or stands uncomfortably to the side.

Using Voicethread, each student can offer her own opinion, ideas, and comments to each piece that the group presents and should be expected to do so. In fact, the stage fright that grips many students when forced to speak in front of the whole class can be managed by using the audio or webcam feature for commentary. Revisions and multiple takes can eliminate the nervousness of public speaking, perhaps even working as a gateway to speaking in front of the class.

Multimedia pieces can be gathered by students using particular sites, through pure inquiry and original research, provided by the teacher, or some combination of the three. In fact, a good way to differentiate group project tasks would be to have some models of multimedia pieces and how to interpret them available to students, as well as a list of possible images, videos, or documents to use or list of resources where multimedia pieces are readily available.

Use these resources as options so that students who are ready to explore and inquire without scaffolding feel free to do so. Student-directed learning should always be the goal, but cannot be expected without modeling and scaffolding.

Whether a group project is presented formally in class or just virtually, Voicethread can be a valuable tool for student evaluation of each other’s projects. Imagine a class presentation presented through Voicethread to a live audience. Using the Voicethread app, students could give immediate feedback or ask questions as a presentation is proceeding. Obviously, etiquette for this procedure would need to be addressed beforehand; however, the power of immediate feedback for students cannot be overstated. Perhaps a demonstration by the teacher using the phone app to make positive feedback as students are presenting would be a good way to introduce the process. As students become familiar with how to give positive, productive commentary in real-time, they actively engage in the listening process.

Constructing this kind of learning environment for students addresses skills that are not typically addressed in classrooms. Being able to construct immediate feedback that is useful to a presenter demonstrates critical thinking at a high level; being able to deconstruct immediate feedback and use that feedback to re-craft a presentation on the fly demonstrates a skill that is highly valued in the workplace.

Assessing the strategy: Comparing student work using Voicethread to earlier project examples is a good way to assess the usefulness of the strategy. Voicethread should not only increase the availability of student access to multimedia sources, but should help increase the participation of all students, the quality of student responses, and the ability to efficiently receive feedback.

Students could be surveyed and asked to compare using Voicethread for the particular project with creating the same project parameters without Voicethread.

Assessing the student: Assessment of student work should be similar- if not identical toassessment of the project without Voicethread. An extra category could be added for listening skills development or audience assessment regarding student comments.

Connecting novels to current events Another way to use Voicethread in an English classroom is to connect novels to current events media such as news videos, images, websites, or articles. If, for example, you were reading The Scarlet Letter and you wanted students to connect the sexual double standard for men and women in pre-colonial New England to the current sexual double standard in contemporary America, you could create a Voicethread that contains a video of Sandra Fluke’s testimony to Congress about birth control, news articles or videos from both sides of the debate, an infographic about birth control in the U.S., and a link to other articles for student research.

For each slide, ask a particular question or have students make general opinion statements about how the birth control debate in contemporary U.S. society has its roots in Puritan values.

The depth and breadth of the Voicethread depends upon how much time and thought you want students to concentrate on the issue. Differentiation becomes easy as students who are more self-directed and skilled spend more time on the Voicethread and other students can be pulled away for one-on-one or small group remediation. Online availability of Voicethread also allows differentiation by interest in the topic.

Another thought for using Voicethread this way is to offer students choices about which themes to focus on while reading a text. For example, a novel like Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried deals with war, with internal vs. external conflict, symbolism in the objects that are carried, and also about the importance of storytelling to make sense of the world.

Alternatives could be offered to students about how they wanted to connect to the text. Four separate voicethreads could be used to house articles, videos, and documents relating to different themes of the novel and their contemporary connections. Students could then choose which perspective to take when reading the novel, in effect guiding their own learning. Multiple choices for perspectives through Voicethread would be a great way to organize independent reading or literature circles, even while using the same texts.

The voicethread itself becomes a supplementary text to a novel offering unique perspectives, further research opportunities, and discussion potential. Connecting current events to literature creates a strong personal connection to the novel, characters, and issues of the novel, as well as links informational text with literary text in an authentic way.

Assessing the Strategy: Depending upon how you plan to use voicethread, multiple assessment strategies can be taken. Comparing student work from previous lessons to voicethread lessons would offer a dimension of assessment, as would student surveys. Another approach to assessing voicethread used in this manner would be students responses to a gallery walk of each theme. Since all students read the same book, comparing how themes are assessed would

help evaluate supplementary materials in each theme. For example, if one literature circle does a more in-depth job than one with a different thematic focus, all else being equal, the reason is most likely the quality of supplementary texts in each theme.

Assessing the student: Assessing students may take many forms, as well. If differentiation is a primary goal, using a basic participation rubric along with some form of summative assessment may fit your assessment needs nicely. Students who need remediation can earn their grades with shorter spans of participation while students needing enrichment can delve deeper into the themes. If, however, a more criterion-referenced approach is your goal, a rubric with specific behavior criteria- such as “connects personal information to a text,” “analyzes themes across genres,” or “synthesizes information from multiple sources”- would be a better way to assess student learning.

Guided instruction- mini-lessons While there are multiple software tools for creating mini-lessons, Voicethread lends itself well to lessons involving creativity on the part of students. One example for using Voicethread to create a mini-lesson would be with poetry types and imagery. If students are asked to do a mini-lesson on imagery, you could include a guided reading of a simple poem on one “slide” that has the document of the poem as it is read via teacher commentary, and ask students to identify imagery in their commentary. The next slide could then be a document highlighting the imagery so that students could check their answers.

A second example could take a more complex piece and ask students to identify imagery. The following slide offers the highlighted document. After several modeled examples of identifying imagery are given, a slide with interesting image could be shown and students can create their own examples of imagery as comments.

Depending how in-depth you want students to get, continued images, videos, or documents with situations or themes could be presented and students asked to create imagery for each one. After the mini-lesson, students could be assigned a poem or descriptive piece using imagery that they could submit to you to be added to the Voicethread. Finally, students could evaluate each other’s work.

This type of guided instruction would work well with any type of literary or rhetorical writing practice before having students submit their own writing sample. Of particular interest to students might be an alternative grammar mini-lesson. Melanie Mayer, author of Two Roads Diverged and I Took Both, uses grammar mini-lessons to generate student writing. Using her unique grammar approach with a voicethread would be another way to engage students with an authentic peer audience for their work.

An example would be an alternative mini-lesson for teaching participles to enhance creative writing. The low-tech version is to give students a boring sentence such as “The boy sat in his desk.” Next, students are reminded that a participle is an –ing verb that acts like an adjective.

Students are then asked to spice up the sentence using a participle at the beginning or end (or both). Several boring sentences are given, and after each one is done by students, they get to share their spiced up sentences with the class.

Using voicethread, you could embellish this lesson on participles and spicy writing. First, you could use either the webcam feature or a video camera to make a video of you introducing participles. Keep it short and to the point. Next, give an example of writing that has participles and have students identify them. Then, get to the writing slides. You can input PowerPoint slides one at a time, so either use PPT or a word processor to make visually interesting slides of

boring sentences. Do a demonstration, and then have students do the work on several examples- one per slide. As a follow-up slide, you could have students vote on which sentence with participle they thought was best from the previous slide. After several examples, up the ante and give a boring paragraph. Inform students that students will vote on a winner of the best participle-added paragraph. Not only will you have an easy-to-access and assess format for student work, but students can reflect back on it, have access to it whenever they need it, and you can publish the results.

Assessing the strategy and the student: Assessment of this strategy and students can be the same. A short quiz or demonstration of the skill can be used to assess student understanding and comparisons to previous student assessments following different methods of teaching the skill can show how voicethread performs when used to teach mini-lessons.

Student-created projects or student expert research The potential of Voicethread to elicit commentary about student-created projects should be fairly obvious. Students can submit to a teacher or collaborate on a voicethread to publish projects either for revision or as final copies for evaluation and peer comment. Since Voicethread supports almost every type of image and video file, digital images- including those taken from cell phones- as well as video presentations of group projects can be posted.

Voicethreads are also easily transmitted via email, posted to Facebook or other social media sites, or embedded into blogs or other websites. The possibilities for widespread commentary on a student project create an authentic audience well beyond the classroom.

In addition, many novels or topics have different perspectives, themes, connections, or allusions that students could become experts on. Most of these smaller themes or connections aren’t done in class due to time restrictions, but Voicethread opens up out of class time for less central ideas. For example, I have often asked students to do mini informative research projects on an allusion or reference in a text to a person, country, theory, or event that students may not have prior background knowledge of but could be interested in.

It’s an easy enough process. I usually assign one or two students to each topic that appears in the text and give them an approximate date that their research should be done. Students do the research on their own and when we get to the text reference we stop reading and ask our resident expert in the topic what that is all about. It’s a great way to enrich students’ knowledge and background information on things they might not otherwise get to know about.

The student then presents a quick overview of that person or event, and the reading continues.

Using Voicethread gives students a chance to create a multimedia representation of their topic or person and lets students who want to know more than the brief description have a source of information easily available. In addition, when students know that other people will be visiting their voicethread, it adds an authentic purpose, audience, and focus for their research and they can get carried away on their own time. Students still share out a summary in class, but they can add a voicethread URL for other students to access their research and get comments about their work gathering information.

Voicethread is also an excellent method for publication with the potential for commentary. For example, body biographies are one of my favorite projects for students to produce to reflect their knowledge of characters after reading a novel. Body biographies are done with markers and paper- although they could just as easily be created using word processing software like Microsoft Word. Students symbolically represent parts of the character’s body. The heart represents what the character loves; the backbone is the character’s motivation; the feet what

he or she stands for, etc. Voicethread can be a valuable tool to share body biographies- or any student work. Upload digital images of the projects to Voicethread and allow students to comment. Then, share the URL via email or embed the voicethread to a Facebook or other webpage for widespread distribution. This usage would be great for other artistic student work display, such as book covers, videos, student writing, etc.

Assessing the Strategy: If using digital images or videos of student projects, the quality and quantity of student responses or student survey data would show the usefulness of the strategy. If using mini- research topics, which wouldn’t necessarily be graded, a good assessment could be the number of student comments.

Assessing the student: For student assessment of group projects, whatever rubrics were used prior to publishing on Voicethread can be used; if student commentary on each other’s voicethreads is required, use a participation rubric like the one at the end of this book. For student assessment of mini-research, a simple participation rubric with criteria such as “Contained #___ of slides,” “provided accurate/interesting information,” and “used a variety of media.”

Thematic discussions The exploration of a theme or multiple themes in a novel is often time-consuming in a typical classroom environment. Because of multiple perspectives, contradictory stances, challenging stereotypes, and differences in values across cultures, thematic units have depth that often cannot be explored in full within the confines of a class.

Voicethread can offer a solution for gathering, organizing, and reflecting on images, articles, videos, and documents relating to a theme. Each new piece of information offers a new example or perspective from which can be generated in class or out of class discussions.

Thematic discussions can happen simultaneously with text-based discussions, adding another layer to reading a novel. For example, short reading selections, videos, images, and PowerPoint presentations can be organized and gathered for students to analyze and comment on outside of class. For difficult pieces, you can add teacher commentary to help focus students, predefine unfamiliar vocabulary, or build connections by activating background knowledge.

When in-class discussion commences, questions regarding related thematic materials can broaden a student’s perspective. Likewise, if an author’s viewpoint can be contradicted or has fallen out of fashion, short alternative or contradictory documents can be scrutinized by students and compared or evaluated. Voicethread offers a space for commentary on a variety of supplementary materials relating to themes across genres.

One way to prepare for an in-class debate might be a text-rich voicethread of media on either side of the debate. Days before a debate, students can access a voicethread on one side of a controversial issue. They can add commentary and connections for the group to use during the debate and highlight connections as they prepare. Students could also be encouraged to add their own research to the debate prep.

Finally, on the day of the debate, students would have immersed themselves in argumentative material and would have a background for debating with the other side- also prepped with a voicethread. Voicethread’s media presentation would be a great to scaffold learning for students new to using text-based support for a debate. If internet access was available in class, students could even directly cite their sources during the debate. Multimedia access points benefit students with different learning styles and reading levels.

Assessing the strategy: Compare student debates with and without a voicethread preparation for quality and quantity of comments. Student surveys would also be beneficial as data.

Assessing the student: Use a participation rubric for the voicethread itself and then follow whatever rubric criteria for the debate that you have used previously. Quality and quantity of comments as well as debate etiquette should definitely be considered.

Informative, persuasive, or narrative essay options Essays traditionally have been comprised of words, sometimes with an image or graphic added.

However, the world around us involves many more visual components to create arguments, descriptions, or to inform. Using a voicethread as a multimedia essay option engages the same visual characteristics that modern media does today.

For example, if you want to know that a student understands how two competing themes combine to drive plot in a novel, students can create an “essay” of images, videos, documents, and URLs that demonstrate their thesis. A multimedia summative assessment allows all students- regardless of learning style or intelligences- to participate in a differentiated way.

Imagine a student struggling in a written essay to prove they understand how two competing themes combine to drive plot in a novel. If the student reads images better than words, she can use voicethread with images to describe the themes, connect the themes, and explain how plot is driven. A combination of text, audio, and video commentary by the student creates an informal, yet often more expressive, critique than writing alone. Using images and video rather than just citing text engages the student’s visual learning strengths. The skills needed to produce a high-level written essay can be taught and scaffolded using Voicethread, slowly incorporating more writing with the same high level of content.

In addition to a classic literary analysis, any type of essay can be done as a multimedia essay using Voicethread. Imagine a personal narrative supplemented by childhood pictures or video, a persuasive essay on advertising bias using video and images, or a descriptive essay that combines words, images, and video, effectively showing and telling. Imagine how much information could be presented by students when the options of images and video are combined with text- and how rich a combination of text, audio, and webcam commentary could make that informative essay. Think of how incredible an essay about rhetorical devices in presidential speeches becomes when clips of those speeches given by the presidents themselves accompany the commentary. Voicethread gives students the ability to use media in their writing and meaning-creation processes.

Assessing the strategy: The easiest assessment of this strategy to engage reluctant students is by comparing the number of written essays turned in to the number of voicethread multimedia essays turned in. The numbers speak for themselves.

Assessing the student: Be sure students have access to exemplar models prior to creating their own multimedia essays; this may mean you’ll have to create one yourself to use. Experiencing the process of creating a multimedia essay is a good thing for teachers, particularly when you go to grade student work. Understanding the uses and limitations of the software will help you

be realistic during assessment. When assessing student products for the first time, recognize that the versatility of the medium allows for differentiation in products. Try to eliminate preconceived notions of what the essay “should” look like. Focus instead on the qualities that make good writing- content, organization, “word” choice, etc. A six trait writing rubric by essay type should suffice with few changes.

Summative Assessments Voicethread makes for a great summative assessment, especially combined with other tools.

One final exam I enjoy giving is an ABC exam. While it takes some time- and is definitely a takehome exam, I find that it informs my future teaching and assesses what students have actually learned- rather than what I think I taught them- better than any other type of summative assessment I’ve ever done.

An ABC exam asks students to determine and elaborate upon something that they’ve learned using every letter of the alphabet. Obviously, some leeway is necessary, like EX words for the letter “X” and other creative spellings and ideas. While I’ve done it before with a PowerPoint, Voicethread offers students a chance to make audio or webcam commentary rather than just write reflections. In addition, I can make comments as I grade without altering their original text. The opportunity for other students to comment makes Voicethread an excellent tool.

To start, I always give students a paper with a box for every letter of the alphabet as a cheat sheet where they can brainstorm ideas. They can use concepts, characters, or vocabulary words from what they’ve studied for the semester. Using each letter of the alphabet encourages creativity and flexibility while making a good excuse to have 26 “slides.” Students can then create a PowerPoint presentation with each letter and upload it to Voicethread, or create or find a separate document for each letter. Set the level of student analysis by grade level; for example, freshmen may write 2-3 sentences for each letter analyzing their choice and describing what they learned.

If a deeper conceptual understanding is the key assessment criteria, you may want students to work in groups so that they are individually responsible for fewer slides. Students could find or create videos, find or manipulate images, make documents, create audio files, or pull information from websites to create their ABC finals. Each letter would have its own media piece and students could comment via text, audio, or webcam with a reflection of why they chose that particular media piece as a representation of what was learned.

On a slightly different track, Voicethread could also be used as a group review of important information learned before a summative assessment. Students could each be responsible for one letter- or one concept- that they would explain to the group in their Voicethread media piece. The process of sharing media representations- whether found or created- and explaining them solidifies the concept for all students. Students who are creative, analytical, or social all benefit from this process of creating and sharing a study guide through Voicethread.

Another summative assessment idea is to have a series of videos, images, or documents related to a theme and have students choose which pieces to analyze as their assessment. Rubric criteria for this type of assessment should include saying something new about the chosen piece. Because comments are posted to Voicethread in the order in which they are submitted, a teacher could easily see quality comments and know who said what comment first. This strategy differentiates the assessment media as students could choose which media pieces to comment on.

If a student is a stronger reader, he may pick a document such as a magazine article. If a student is more image savvy, she may pick an image or video to analyze. Additionally, student who struggle to write can still share comments via audio or video. Finally, students who may need to see an example before generating their own response can see other student’s work before posting their own comments. Assuring students have many opportunities to “read” new media and analyze it using a variety of response options truly differentiates the assessment process.

Assessing the strategy: Again, student surveys offer insight into the success of a strategy as well as student participation. The more students fully participate, the higher indication that the strategy is effective.

Assessing the student: When assessing students, a clearly defined rubric and holistic grading is best. Some ABC letters may fall short of inspiration and so an overall grade is a better way to assess. If you need strong evidence for the holistic grade- aka AP students- you can always use a printed rubric and highlight a dot for each letter. For example, I have had AP students argue incessantly about one percentage point. In their cases, I would go through each slide with a 5 point rubric consisting of 3-4 criteria. For each slide, I would use a highlighter (because you can see through it) to make a dot on the rubric box where each slide fell. Then, I’d count up the dots for specific scores. Most of my regular students accept that a 95% and a 96% are both A’s; for them, a single highlight for a holistic grade is sufficient. You know your students.

Writing Portfolios Voicethread is a valuable tool for creating writing portfolios that can be easily shared and commented on by students or teachers. Drafts of writing done on a word processor can be uploaded in multiple versions with student commentary reflecting on the writing process and the selection of pieces to submit in the portfolio. In addition, URLs for blog pages can be used so that students can reflect on keys parts of their drafting process. Images, pdf files, videos, and URLs for other Web 2.0 tool creations can add variety to the types and formats of writing, regardless of the type of writing.

Management and sharing of a creative, descriptive, informative, or even persuasive writing portfolio is easy with Voicethread. Students create their own free accounts and upload pieces that they wish to include to their Voicethread. They can add collaborators for writing groups or share their Voicethread via URL, email, Facebook, or just through the Voicethread site. Student could have multiple editors in the rough draft phases of their portfolios, including fellow students, parents or relatives, friends, or even a collaborating class in another town, state, or country. Since commenting on a Voicethread is as simple as signing up for a free account, students could have a broad audience helping them select final portfolio pieces, building upon smaller pieces, generating new ideas, inspiring different perspectives or styles, or just encouraging them to continue writing.

After a well-reviewed preliminary or working portfolio, final portfolios can be created with student comments and reflections about the writing and crafting process. Multiple authors could band together to create group portfolios or single authors could select pieces that demonstrate their learning and growth in writing. With as many styles of Voicethread portfolios as hardcopies- albeit Voicethread portfolios having more media options- the possibilities abound.

Assessing the strategy: When assessing whether using Voicethread to create writing portfolios is effective, the best assessment is having students publish their voicethread to a social media networking cite and see how many comments they can get. Following this assessment for authentic audience, an open-ended survey would determine usefulness.

Assessing the student: Writing portfolios should be assessed for quality of writing within whatever criteria and guidelines you have presented with students. Publication- and revisionusing voicethread should not change methods of assessment for writing portfolios.

Evidence of Student Inquiry Developing a means to evaluate student inquiry has always been a worthy goal. As teachers, we want our students to explore the world; we just don’t always have an easy way to assess inquiry. Voicethread could change that. Since Voicethread can contain multimedia pieces in a simple format with no programming or tech skills needed, it allows any student to share the results of inquiry in a meaningful, assessable way. Students can use Voicethread to delineate their inquiry so that anyone can see and comment on their process.

For example, students are given a topic to explore. Each student opens a voicethread in a separate tab. As she comes across websites that give information about her topic, she can review the information in that website. If she deems it valuable, she can upload the URL as a slide in her Voicethread. She can immediately comment using text, audio, or webcam what in the site was valuable to her inquiry, questions that might be raised or answered, new related topics that she is interested in, as well as her thoughts and connections to the information.

As she continues her inquiry, narrowing or broadening her topic, she keeps a running record of all the sites she’s visited, what she’s learned, and what her plan for continuing her inquiry is. It would be a simple process for a teacher to use a critical thinking checklist to evaluate the level of her inquiry. Immediate feedback would be available as teachers could comment right on her Voicethread. Teachers, parents, other students, or any other interested party could comment on each piece, make suggestions about what to explore or directions to take, make connections to other topics or broader ideas, and even ask questions to deepen her thinking process. Think how much more valuable inquiry would be to a student when shared with an interested and interactive audience. Teachers could invite experts to add comments; students could invite relatives. This type of inquiry would open up the social, creative, and analytical processes and evolve into a new way to learn about the world.

Assessing the strategy: The quality and quantity of student-generated material would be the best method of assessing Voicethread’s usefulness as a tool for inquiry. Student surveys and comparisons to prior inquiry would also help with assessment.

Assessing the student: When it comes to student inquiry, several theories of assessment apply.

First, a basic participation grade based on a differentiated scale of ability could be used if the purpose is to encourage inquiry as an intrinsically motivated skill. Second, a criterion-based grade showing evidence of skill level in particular skills, such as research, compare/contrast, cause/effect, synthesis, or analysis, could be used to compare students to grade level standards. Third, a growth model grade could compare previous knowledge using a preassessment with gained knowledge via post-assessment. Finally, the inquiry itself could be used

by the student to create a separately grade product using the skills and content gained during the inquiry.

How-To Voicethread www.voicethread.com Go to the Voicethread website to get started creating your very own Voicethread.

Click sign in or register in the top right corner.

Click register and register a new account for free. All you need is an email address.

You will be directed to My Voice page where all of the voicethreads you have downloaded and created will be displayed. There are six introductory voicethreads for you to watch. If you do not have your computer’s microphone set up and you want to do video or audio commentary, there are two videos to help you. The voicethread on video doodling is a fun one and shows you how to draw on your voicethread- your doodle shows up during your commentary.

You can browse through other voicethreads to get ideas for creating your own, or you can go to Create and create your first voicethread.

On the Create screen, click upload. Now is your opportunity to upload the slides you want to use. You can upload from your computer- most file types are supported. I don’t know of any types that aren’t supported, but if you find one, the VT support team can troubleshoot for you.

One word of warning: if you upload a PowerPoint from your computer, each PPT slide is its own Voicethread slide. If you want your entire PPT to play as one, you either need to upload it to YouTube or TeacherTube first and then upload to Voicethread, or you can screencast your PPT and upload the video file.

Multiple files can be uploaded at once by holding the control key as you select them.

Media sources available for upload include photos from Flickr or Facebook, media from other Voicethreads in your My Voice section, and the New York Public Library which hosts over 700,000 usable images. You can add a slide of a URL and your published Voicethread will include the link. Finally, you can make a video with your webcam and upload it directly.

Once you have files uploaded, you add a title, description, and tags. Tags are great if you plan to create many voicethreads or teach different classes, or want to organize your voicethreads so that you can easily search for groups. Next, you’ll add your comments.

When you first click the comment button, you get the option to add a picture to the identity.

Then you have a choice of how to comment. You can upload an audio comment which would be a good choice if you have a particularly long comment that you’d like add. By creating that comment first in an audio editing program, you can ensure that it is exactly how you want it to be. You can also type your comment, record it on the microphone or use the webcam to make a video comment. Finally, you can phone in your comment. The comment that you add could be

directions, background information, questions you want students to answer, or your thoughts as a model.

Once you’ve added all of your comments, you can share your voicethread.

You can get a link to share with students or add to a webpage or email. You can also create groups of students using email contacts or send invitations via email to your contacts. You can embed your voicethread in your webpage. There are also multiple publishing options.

If you allow anyone to view your voicethread, anyone with access to the link can view it, but no new comments can be made. If you check allow anyone to comment and moderate comments, and then all comments are held until you clear them. Comment moderation is a good way to teach students online etiquette as comments are not posted unless they are appropriate. If you choose, you can make your voicethread public so that it is available through the browse tab on everyone’s Voicethread account. You are still the only one who can edit the voicethread.

Once you have published your voicethread, you can add identities. One strategy for using Voicethread to teach a concept would be to use separate identities to ask and answer questions as a model for your students. Having multiple identities is also nice when you are working with students in the classroom who do not have an email address. They can still work on Voicethread projects in class using an identity on your account. Be sure that if you do this, you monitor students- if they are on your account, they can alter or delete your voicethreads.

Enjoy the versatile, media-rich possibilities that Voicethread encourages for your students.

Final thought: While I was presenting at the NCTE 2012 conference, a teacher in the audience said that she uses Voicethread when she has a substitute for the day. She pre-records herself using the webcam teaching lessons, showing examples, leading discussions, and ultimately freaking out her students (she’s not there, but she’s still teaching). All the substitute teacher has to do is push a button and the class gets a valuable education. I’m definitely going to use that for my next professional development day!