Using Voice Thread

This week we shared some ideas using VoiceThread. I created a short video with some questions and people in the class responded either in text format or audio format. Here are some questions it raised for me. What do you think?

Did you prefer contributing by text or audio? (No one tried video contribution)

How would your students react to this way to share their ideas?

Does it encourage conversation or just serial posts? How could you use it to develop a dialog?

Is there a need to have someone go back and summarize the conversation at the end of the week?

Did you find it useful to have pictures of contributors?

What skills are you learning through your own online learning experience? What skills are important to focus on if we want students to guide their own learning and work online independently and collaboratively?

Changes to GoogleDocs

If you liked GoogleDocs when you created your project last week, check out the improvements they are making in a post from TechSpots.

Google for Teachers

Joyce Valenza, in her blog NeverEnding Search, shared links to a free document called Google for Teachers. It doesn't focus on common uses of GoogleDocs, but instead looks at some of the less well-known tools and different ways to use the common ones.

Web 2.0 Technologies that Facilitate Collaboration

Bud Talbot, a science teacher, talks about ways he uses web 2.0 technologies to extend the collaboration going on in his science classroom, e.g., group problem solving, group lab activities, pair-share, peer tutoring, jigsaw, and student teams/games. He uses a variety of technologies for:

• extension of in-class group time
• online group workspaces
• sharing updates
• sharing work with an outside audience
• documentation