I am sharing an example of a VoiceThread I created for my online History of Photography students.  The VoiceThread is part instructional content (via a 7-minute video included within the VoiceThread) and part formative assessment.  The formative assessment is demonstrated through the slides following the video that incorporate objective and subjective/discussion oriented questions, assessing lower and higher order levels of learning.  The introductory slides are provided to anchor the activity with clear groundrules and expectations.

I should also note that VoiceThread is not the only assessment method I use in the class.  Traditional assessments and regular blog posts are also integrated.

I’m sharing this because I know how helpful it can be to teachers to have an opportunity to see examples of how tools are being used.  I hope this will encourage you to share examples from your own classes that demonstrate how you’re integrating web 2.0 and social media tools into your students’ learning.  I’m also sharing this example because as I interact with faculty, I am finding that many are aware of VoiceThread to some degree but few understand that a single VoiceThread has the potential to be a learning mashup, incorporating presentation slides, video, images and assessment rather than a container for a Powerpoint presentation.

I’m also experimenting with VoiceThread Groups for the first time this term.  I’ll share more about that later.  

Feel free to add a comment in the VoiceThread if you’d like to experiment!  Just click “Sign in or Register”and if you don’t yet  have a free VoiceThread account, create one with your name and email.

And in case you’re wondering, here are the steps I took to create this example.  It took me about 8-hours to produce (which, YES, to me is the greatest obstacle for creating high quality online content):

Create Video

1. Create Keynote or Powerpoint presentation for the “video” portion.
2. Write transcript for the “video” portion.
3. Use a screencast tool (I used Screenflow) to record the Keynote and produce the raw video file.  I read the transcript as I record.
4. Export the raw screencast into a .mov file.

 Create Presentation

1. Use Keynote or Powerpoint to create the Introductory and Assessment slides.
2. Export the presentation to a PDF file(PDFs hold up much better than PPTs in VoiceThread and VT does not support Keynote files).

Create Online Transcript of Video

1. This can be done in a multitude of ways. I simply pasted my transcript into a Google doc.

Create a VoiceThread

1. Log into my VoiceThread Account
2. Click on the Create Tab
3. Click “Upload”
4. Upload the .mov file
5. Upload the PDF file
6. Drag and drop slides until they area arranged in correct order.
7. Click on the single slide that contains the .mov file.  It will appear in the ‘placeholder’ to the right.  Add title: “Click here to read the transcript.”  In the URL area, paste the link to the Google doc.

Click “Comment”

1. Leave voice comments on each slide, replicating the text so the content is equivalent in both text and audio formats (for hearing impaired students).

Click “Share”

1. Adjust the Playback and Publishing Options.
2. Copy the link, html embed code or share with appropriate group.