Final Reflections: Voice Thread

Now that I've explored all the stories individually, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the anthology as a whole. I chose to use VoiceThread to do so. I've heard a lot about VoiceThread and its use in K-12 classrooms, but had never had the chance to create my own.

You can also view a larger version at http://voicethread.com/share/1192434/

I should note that for this assignment, I chose to shift my perspective back to a teacher examining this anthology as a teaching tool for her students. My reflections on each story thus blend my personal reactions with thoughts about how each story might be used within a classroom. Obviously, I think that students could easily create a similar VoiceThread (without the teaching ideas, of course!) to share their reactions to the story. Or the teacher could create a VoiceThread and require each student to comment on one, several, or even all of the stories, creating a single product that encompassed the reactions of all the students.

VoiceThread was a very easy-to-use tool, and I think it could be easily incorporated into a classroom. I liked how there were text and audio options for commenting, which makes the tool more accessible. It is also easy to send a direct link or to embed the thread into a web site or blog, which allows students and teachers to share their work with families. I've seen some great examples where grandparents and other relatives have left audio comments on the work. Having an authentic audience is such a key aspect of web 2.0, and it really adds to reading and writing assignments.

There are so many possible uses for VoiceThread that I couldn't begin to list them all. I'm glad I finally had a reason to experiment with the tool!