Voice Thread

This week, we as a class, have been working with a voice thread. I found this to be an extremely good educational tool. This allowed the learners to participate in forming the meaning around the subject mater. This is very powerful. The most important step in any educational process is the critical reflection piece. By allowing the students to be part of the creation of the message by sharing their personal thoughts they would actually take the time to properly reflect. Most students would not want to post something that others will see that is poor so they will put in a better effort into the reflection of the subject. Students can participate in two ways. They could watch the entire thread and see what their classmates are saying or stop the feed, which is what I did, and then think about it personally and then make my comment. Once I made mine without influence from others, I then listened to the other comments.  If I wished, I could add more after.

As an educator I see this as a great tool. I could post a difficult lecture or subject with my explanation added and then have the students work through the slides and add comments as well to help clarify for their classmates. This takes the concept of a flipped classroom to an entirely different level by allowing interaction by students. As a student this can become a huge advantage for working on a collaborative project over a distance. I feel it would be much easier to create this type of voice thread so that a person could be looking at a screen shoot of the project while listening to an explanation and then of course add their comments as well. It would help with reducing the number of text messages and e-mails while working on a project.


Jeff