Give your students a voice with VoiceThread

VoiceThread is a great way to get students interacting with the material youpresent to them. The can comment in various ways and annotate sources directly. You will need a login to the website and so will each student.Some tips:

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Demonstrate how to make a comment and how to annotate the picture or video using a projector/interactive whiteboard

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If you use VoiceThread during a lesson (e.g. in the ICT suite or library),allow students some time to choose an avatar. It personalizes theexperience for them!

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Make sure your VoiceThread is set to be public, but ‘unlisted’. This meansthat to find it, you need to give students a link. Random comments by members of the public can then be avoided.Go tohttp://www.voicethread.com and click on ‘Sign in or Register’ at the top right-hand corner.

Click on the

link.Fill in the boxes appropriately, then press the ‘register’ button.N.B. VoiceThread does have an account specially for educators (as you can seeabove). However, these are not free. You get to create 3 voicethreads for free,after that you could use the one-time $10 option for educators.

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Once you’re logged in you should see a screen similar to the one above. Click on‘Create’ to make your first voicethread!

When you get to a screen like the one above, click on ‘Upload’, click on ‘From My Computer’ and browse to the image or video you want to use.N.B. You

can

import photos from Flickr or Facebook, but our school network blocks both of these websites. If you know the URL directly to an image, you canuse that. When your image or video has uploaded, you will be presented with a screensimilar to this one. Click on ‘Add a title and description’ at the top.