Voicethread is a great tool for collaboration and sharing. You can combine images, documents and video in a slideshow format. Then other users can add voice, text, audio file or video comments. As a K-12 school, it’s best to get a classroom or school license, which conforms to both COPPA and FERPA. Common Sense gives Voicethread a great review, and 4 stars.
Here are 5 possible uses of VoiceThread in the K-12 classroom:
- Upload a document, video or image and have students post a comment or response as voice, text, or audio.
- A small group of students co-create a presentation as documentation for or of learning.
- In one class, students co-create a VoiceThread. Then buddies from another class comment on the VoiceThread.
- Students read a favorite poem, using a painting or drawing they made as the backdrop. Other students can share similar poems as a comment.
- Collaborate with two other classes, where students in one class post images, students in another class comment on each image, with a poem, and students in a third class comment with music. The students will choose the three related media to evoke the same emotions/feelings in the audience. We did such a project in Grade 5 last year, where students in Dar es Salaam created the images in Art Class, students in Seattle made the music in GarageBand in Music Class, and our students typed up their own poems in their homerooms.
This is our resulting VoiceThread from the 3 schools collaboration: