With all of the projects I’ve done so far, I have been focused on how I would use these technologies to promote the teaching of my subject matter. For my final one, I’m going to look at improving the classroom environment and promoting interpersonal relationships in order to enhance learning. This will be done via Voicethread. Voicethread is a website that allows you to upload pictures or PDFs and make comments either via typing or via recording. You create your own pages with pictures and comments and anyone who you invite is free to comment back and talk to anyone else who has shared or commented on the page. In this situation, I created a class welcome page, as well as making a couple comments as a student to display the program’s capabilities: http://voicethread.com/share/2163667/
The original idea behind my use of this technology was to provide a forum for students to get to know me as well as each other. This can go so far as a link to a thread like mine in the summer before school starts so that they can learn something about me before ever setting foot in the classroom. Theoretically, I could also use it to introduce them to the classroom itself so that they can be more comfortable when they walk in on the first day of school. The goal is to start from the beginning by creating an environment where collaboration between myself and the students is encouraged. We know based on Vygotsky’s ideas of social learning that students can increase learning efficiency by collaborating with each other and with the teacher. The idea is that another student may come from a different background and therefore have a different point of view that the first student may have never considered. This will force them consider their initial thoughts more critically and possibly can lead to them accommodating the new idea into their world view. When I first thought of Voicethread as a “get to know you” technique, I thought it would be useful merely in creating a more comfortable environment from which collaboration could occur. The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that it could be highly useful for discussion and collaboration throughout the year as well. Furthermore, if you can get to the point of students creating their own Voicethreads, not only will they be interacting with each other to discover new things, they’ll also be creating new material for themselves and their classmates which can be extremely beneficial.
Implementation, especially in the summer before school starts, may be quite difficult. The first issue is that Voicethread is not the most user friendly program for beginners. I know the first time I used it, I found it incredibly frustrating as I kept inadvertently doubling up my voice comments. Without proper instruction, it may be difficult for some students to interact properly. Secondly, there seems to be no way that you could require students to involve themselves with this before the year begins. While they would certainly see during the year how collaboration will make class more helpful and more fun, it may be hard to convince them of that before the school year begins. During the year, it would again require the use of computers. The difference with this technology is that it may be difficult to utilize it in a computer lab setting. The voice recording functionality, which is the thing that makes this program special in my opinion, would be nearly impossible to use with 20 students all trying to record at once. So this would likely only be able to be done on personal computers. While there is an option to call a phone number and record voice on there, only the first two minutes are free and then it starts charging, so that again would be a difficult thing to require. In a 1-to-1 setting, Voicethread could be a brilliant tool, but it may be difficult beyond that at this point.
Another issue with Voicethread is that it comes with a number of trade-offs and built in biases. The first is that, while it is intended to be a collaborative tool, it only provides the most impersonal sorts of interactions. With the lack of accountability that the internet provides at times, it may lead to students acting in a way that they wouldn’t in the classroom, so it will be important to focus on the proper use of the program in the classroom (but we’ll get into that in the standards section). A second major issue is that, while I intend it to be a program that helps increase student comfort with both myself and each other, Voicethread lends itself to the outgoing. Those who are more quiet or private may have difficulty becoming involved in the benefits of the program and if they don’t participate, there is the risk that they will end up feeling even more separated.
Voicethread meets INTASC Standard #6 as well as ISTE Standards #4 and #5. As far as INTASC #6, it demonstrates “knowledge of effective verbal, nonverbal, and media communication techniques to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom.” One of Voicethread’s biggest benefits, in my opinion, are the multiple forms of media that it uses. From the viewing of pictures, to reading and writing comments, to speaking and listening to others, it can cover most of the ways that students ingest information. The fact that it is totally open and interactive is what makes it such a great collaborative tool. We brushed upon ISTE #4 in regards to the promotion of digital citizenship and responsibility, but I think it’s important to give it a little more depth. Since the internetVoicethread allows the opportunity for a safe, small scale demonstration of those freedoms and responsibilities. While you can display any picture you want, or make any sort of comment you want, you must stress how important it is that students use it wisely and that anything that they may divulge, which may depict them in a negative way, is available for public consumption. Finally ISTE #5 talks about engaging in professional growth by demonstrating the effective use of digital tools and resources. Utilizing all of the different functions of Voicethread demonstrates a very forward use of digital tools. It shows an interest in new technologies and a focus on their positive uses that should pass down to students. I know that when I first come across Voicethread, I was very skeptical, but after I saw all it could do, I became very enthusiastic...and as we all know, enthusiasm is one of the first things that students recognize.
One thing that was unfortunately lacking regarding the technologies I used for my other project was research specific to the program. There have been a number of articles specifically written about Voicethread as it seems to be a “typical” example of a Web 2.0 technology that, while not initially designed for education, has a vast number of educational affordances. The article I focused on was as follows:
Burden, K. & Atkinson, S. (2008). Evaluating pedagogical ‘affordances’ of media
sharing Web 2.0 technologies: A case study. In Hello! Where are you in the landscape of educational technology? Proceedings ascilite Melbourne 2008.
http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/procs/burden-2.pdf
Burden and Atkinson go through a number of different functions of Voicethread and the corresponding pedagogical affordances that those functions allow. The matrices they formulate are highly compelling and the arguments they make for these being effective guidelines by which to evaluate other Web 2.0 technologies may create a highly effective tool. In fact, I think it is a tremendous start to the entire analysis. Here’s where it felt incomplete: The article speaks of Voicethread (and most Web 2.0 tech) as not being designed for education, but then clearly having educational value through their affordances. The problem however, is that they don’t then address the potential pitfalls of using this technology for educational purposes. After all, since the tech had unintended educational value, it seems logical that it would also have unintended perils. I think that it would be important for any evaluation tool, like the matrices they created, to include any foreseeable negatives along with all of the benefits. In any event, Voicethread is highly impressive to me and I will likely continue to try and discover new ways that I may use it in my future classroom.
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