Voicethread: Innovative, Creative, and Easy to Use

                Voicethread focuses on taking one of the most traditionally social aspects of teaching (story telling) and combines this with current technologies in order to create a unique and interesting way for people to share stories and information.  I found that using Voicethread was an enjoyable experience thanks largely to the relatively easy to use interface and the level of personalization a person can use when creating a Voicethread.  These aspects of the program are the two biggest reasons why this program could be successful in the classroom. 

Using drawn pictures or photographs a teacher can introduce the idea of a storyboard in one session of class then use Voicethread as a means of both demonstrating a storyboard and giving students the opportunity to create their own story.  The interface is fairly easy to teach, taking a step by step approach to adding pictures, voice, and text to thread.  Each of these steps can be broken down and easily taught in the classroom and demonstrated using the teacher’s own Voicethread.

This program gives students a unique way to write and publish their own stories with a few ways to differentiate depending on a student’s strengths and weaknesses.  Students who are stronger in writing can focus on detailed text descriptions of their story, while students who may struggle with writing can focus more on their voice work.  This also gives those students an opportunity to work on their weaknesses in the writing process without letting their shortcomings overshadow the project.  Most importantly Voicethread allows students a creative way to publish and share their hard work with their family, their school, and the world.