Voicethread fascinates me, and it may even be very useful in a face-to-face course. It seems to accomplish what I already do in most classes. In them, students must interact intensely and closely with texts. Usually, we put a selection from a text up on the screen and look carefully at it. We also draw on it, circle words, write on it.
Voicethread does all that and more. It allows each user to comment, interpret, and provide some connection from other texts. (I like Bruce's use of Ferris Buehler in our BOLT thread, because it uses one text to interpret or describe another.)
So now I have questions:
-- At what point does Voicethread become unmanageable? How many comments/responses are too many?
--is there a way to thread replies, ala a discussion forum?
--what are the best kinds of responses? I mean is video necessarily better or more engaging than audio-only? (I don't like the text feature very much. It's a small box that requires too much scrolling.)
I wonder if Dordt could get a trial version of Voicethread, so that we could see how well it works in our classes. I'd like to try it.
I'm pretty excited about Voice Thread too and I can't wait to incorporate into a course. I'm developing an alternative online version of EDUC 165 for a student who is enrolled in it in the Fall but will be on SPIN in Nicaragua. I agree with you that text is not as engaging and the scrolling can be tedious. However, for most people reading text is faster than listening to audio or watching video. My son, who will be a senior in HS in the fall, is working on an online course this summer and is mastering each lesson in less than half the time the curriculum estimated it would take. When I asked him why this was happening, he said he was reading the text file instead of watching the videos. So while I love the variety of modes of communication offered through VoiceThread, I'm planning to make reading/writing text one of the options in my alternative online course, simply because it may be good time management for both myself and my student to do so.
ReplyDeleteI am also interested in Voice Thread and second the call for a trial version at Dordt. I can see how this tool is very useful for online classes or having a discussion outside of class in a F2F. How do you think it could best be incorporated into an F2F class session?
ReplyDeleteYou raise some really important questions in this post, Josh. I don't have all the answers, but I can share a bit from my own experiences using VoiceThread both as an instructor and as a student.
ReplyDelete-- One of the biggest issues, as you mention, is the time you have to commit to interacting well with VT. It definitely ups the social presence for the discussion, but that comes at a tradeoff of time. (I totally agree with what Mary Beth brings up above about the difference between reading and viewing, time-wise. This has been one of my biggest frustrations with one of my professors who used VT extensively for one course.) I think having some discussions via VT, and then balancing them with discussions held in other venues might be a promising solution.
-- As far as I know, there aren't good ways to thread the discussion in VT, unfortunately. This would be a real asset, so you would better know to whom you are responding.
-- I did have one professor who had us work in groups with our VTs. This seemed like a really good idea to me; instead of all 22 of us chiming in on the same presentation, there were four smaller groups of 4-5 students each. This made it much more manageable for the interactions and for the time commitment. On the other hand, this also meant our instructor had four VTs to keep up with, rather than just one...
-- If I were forced to pick one tech tool as my favorite one for online teaching, I think VT would be it. It's not the best tool for everything...there is not such thing. But it allows for a lot of flexibility in the way that you present information, and the way students can interact with that information online!
I too hope we'll get an institutional license for VoiceThread. I've mentioned it to the folks in Computer Services before...I think I'll bring it up again. :-)