Today was so exciting! An English class in summer school came to the library to do individual VoiceThreads as a culminating activity, and they did a great job and had so much fun! They were fully engaged all day long, an admirable feat in summer school!
After reading William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the students had come to the library to research (using both print and non-print sources) an aspect of daily life during the Middle Ages. After researching their topics, citing their sources, and creating note cards, they withdrew to the classroom to compose a short story using this research material.
In the library today, students created their free email account at yahoo.com. I had suggested yahoo because it seemed easier to get Flickr Creative Commons images if they already had a yahoo account. Most of the students already had an email account, but a few needed to set up one. No one had any trouble doing this.
Unfortunately, Flickr was still blocked this morning even though I had sent in a request to have it unblocked. I missed my best opportunity to discuss the creative commons, copyright,and giving credit to sources; we used google images instead, but I don't think anyone actually figured out how to give credit on the VoiceThread slide.
Students then requested a free account at VoiceThread.com
All that is required to register is the usual information plus a valid email account. No student had difficulty with this. (Use the K-12 link for free)
Students logged in to VoiceThread, uploaded (step 1) their 8 required images and attempted to record the story relating to each image (comment = step 2) We used the old library Dells, and most of the students were able to record successfully without an external microphone. We had some external mikes available for use by students whose machines proved uncooperative. The opportunities for re-recording are endless so one can record and record and record until one is satisfied with the result!
Sharing is step 3. One can copy the link and share it, invite friends, send in an email or embed (which is what I did in my blog) or export an archival movie version which costs $2.99 per export or buy 10 for $10.00. The students clicked on the tab that said +Add to MyVoice page
so they can locate it and present it to the class tomorrow for their assessment.
Isn't it great to see one of the 11.5 Things actually being used in the library and with such great success???
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4 comments:
would there be a chance that we could get a link to see the project? Will it be public?
Flickr CC got open late this afternoon as did some of the other major resources we count on! I know...I am sorry you did not have access to the resource at such an opportune time.
Google images has also added to the ADVANCED search a way you can search for copyright-friendly resources.
Everything was so hurried that we got only one link out of the whole class, and we have to copy and paste it into www.voicethread.com in the address bar. As soon as the class left here, they returned to the classroom to take their final, and we didn't have much time to talk about sharing. The presentations were made in the library using a whiteboard, laptop, and projector, and each student used the laptop to log on to voicethread and bring up his/her project. None of the presentations is public. Next time we do this, we will be better prepared for sharing. Thanks for your interest and support!
This is awesome! I really liked your voicethread for julius caesar and I'm so glad you've used voicethread successfully with the kids. I'm going to totally copy you! Thanks!
I'm glad this went well (snafu's excepted and expected.) I love voicethread but haven't had a real opportunity to use it with kids partly due to the email and time constraints.
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