Incorporating VoiceThread allows online students to engage in discussion about digital media such as video and music as it plays, directly as part of the multimedia experience. This facilitates a richer conversation enhanced with voice, video, and visual cues that appeal to a broader range of learning styles.
It has been said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. There are inherent difficulties in using words, especially typed text, to communicate about ideas that are best experienced and expressed in their native forms. Such challenges may hamper student engagement and interaction with content that is so media dependent.
Technology is helping to bridge that gap by facilitating a richer, broader conversation, enhanced by multi-media options. VoiceThread is a tool that allows comment and annotation with audio, video, and even drawing on the screen. This fosters interaction and expression beyond what is possible in the mere text discussion forum.
These conversations can also be more precise and explicit. Rather than referencing a particular point in a video or audio clip as part of a written discussion, students can comment directly in the media at the moment of interest! Students can also record their responses to music and video in “real time,” as they are experiencing it. This opens up further possibilities for interpretation, response, and collaboration.
This presentation will demonstrate examples and explore approaches to using VoiceThread in the instruction and critique of music and video media. Collaboration, presentation, and alternate assessment methods will also be discussed. Participants will also have the opportunity to interact, contribute, and access demonstrational materials.