The Story of Jessica - A breathe of Fresh Wilderness Air - VoiceThread



Katie Tegtmeyer's flickr Photostream

The third leg of my wilderness excursion led me to VoiceThread.  I was vaguely aware of this tool – something someone had mentioned in a conversation I only partially listened to.  Regardless, it was terrain I was not familiar with.  (Have I packed enough duct tape???)

This is my experimental piece - The Story of Jessica.  Jess is our latest addition to the family.  Just like all the others, she was a surprise (I have to know people better before I share the personal details, but there is a humorous story for each child - only the ladies on my ringette team know them all!)  What I share here is the arrival of Jessica (whom I really wanted to name Darby, my maiden name, but my husband couldn't get past picturing my dad and brother when he said the name).  I used these pictures to create the VoiceThread, and to play with the voice recording and drawing tools.  I don't start to experiment with the drawing tools until the last several slides, when I begin talking about the Corel PaintShop Photo Pro photo editing tools I was using (which I love - I have the Pro X2 version, but the newest version is the Pro X3 and was highly recommended in the workshop I took on Digital Storytelling with Bernajean Porter).



chucklepix (Steve)'s flickr photostream

 The duct tape can stay in the bag for this presentation tool - there were no wounds.  If Animoto was the gentle stream, then VoiceThread is the fresh wilderness air - refreshing to breathe and a sense of clarity follows.  The process was again simple - the creators of these tools must know people like me, lacking patience and technological savvy, are using them. 

First, I created an account.  I tried to set up the free Pro VoiceThread account - Berger and Trexler (2010) indicate the Pro account is available to teachers at no cost (p. 138) when you sign up with your school email.  I set up the free account for now, but if I were to use in the classroom, I do recommend the Pro account - it allows you to create a protected account which all students can use (even if they are under the age of 13 which is the age required to set up their own accounts).  This assures the privacy of the account and for the participants (Berger & Trexler, p. 138). 

Next, I uploaded my pictures, arranged the order of the pictures and then added my voice recordings.  I figured all of these steps out without tutorials and on my first try - the steps really are fail proof.  I previewed my recordings and if I didn't like the recording I simply "cancelled" it and recorded a different one.  After I was comfortable with that feature, I experimented with the drawing tool.  Again, after the first or second use, it became a natural tool to use while recording your comment, enabling me to clearly identify which aspects of the slide I was referring to.  It was similar to how I would teach using my Smartboard in my classroom.

I did look at a tutorial about Video Doodling and this is where I made my first attempt at participating in someone else's VoiceThread.  I was able to post this VoiceThread to the sidebar of this blog using the embedding feature within VoiceThread.  This feature makes it easy to share the VoiceThread on a number of different platforms.  Just as a note, the VoiceThread was too large for my sidebar, but I was able to move it to different locations on my blog on the "design" page.  I didn't like the location, so I copied the HTML text from the sidebar and inserted it into my blog.  Below I have the inserted collaborative piece as well as the link.

http://voicethread.com/share/21651/

With the basics of how to create and publish a VoiceThread out of the way, I began to explore how I would use this tool.  VoiceThread has a Digital Library and Browse section which gives many examples.  Again, it is a mash-up of tools such as Audacity and PowerPoint and other video tools, to create an enhanced presentation. 

Berger and Trexler recommended Bill Ferriter's site and described it as a VoiceThread 101 site (2010, p. 135).  His blog is Digitally Speaking and really does cover everything you need to understand VoiceThread and the possibilities for it.  You will find resources for teaching students how to create a VoiceThread, proper etiquette, assessment tools and exemplars.  It is a great site to include in your initial exploration.

Another blog with extensive information regarding the educational benefits of VoiceThread is InfoTech4Learning.  The section is titled "VoiceThread in Teaching and Learning" and summarizes the uses as identified in several sources.  Again, this is a site recommended by Berger and Trexler (2010, p. 136).  Below is an excerpt from the section of "VoiceThread in Teaching and Learning" on InfoTech4Learning:

 

Benefits of VoiceThread according to Valenza and others:

• simple and easy
• focus on the content instead of the tool; can serve as a form of free writing (Ferriter)
• requires simple hardware and minimal memory requirements (Langhorst); minimal tech-barrier (Ferriter)
• encourages collaborative storytelling
• ability to use powerful images - one or many
• users can zoom in to see detail and out to see big picture (haven’t figure that one out yet)
• ability to add text
• easy to capture voices
• inspires ongoing conversation about each image (Ferriter)
• build fluency, precision and voice in second language
• new dimension for creative analysis of historical photographs, maps and artifacts
• ability to give and receive feedback from peers, teachers [formative and summative assessment], parents and other relatives, local and global community (Fryer)
• effective tutorials (although I didn’t find them or the website design as intuitive as some of the other web 2.0 tool tutorials)
• can be used “as a storytelling tool, a deep thinking tool, a research tool, an expository communication tool, and even an asessment tool” (Dyck)
• allows for differentiation to accomodate different learning needs and styles, another option for struggling or reluctant writers (Dyck)
• allows the teachers to seamlessly integrate digital collaboration into the currciulum (Ferriter)
• provides another opportunity to discuss copyright

Finally, one last site Berger and Trexler (2010) recommend is Ned's Keeper "VoiceThread in the Classroom".  This site gives 40 ideas of ways VoiceThread can be used in the classroom.  Not to mention, it is a great site and is a member of Star Discovery Educator's Network.

emrank's flickr photostream

On a personal level, I found a VoiceThread on High Speed Photography which was very informative.  There were VoiceThread by children about drawings, discussions of pictures and movies, to name a few.  As I was looking through these, I thought how wonderful it would be if there were a driver training study guide on VoiceThread (my daughter is currently studying to take her learners and finds it quite boring).  An interactive VoiceThread would be a great place for people studying to prepare for the test - visuals with descriptions, plus the opportunity to post questions/thoughts as well as listen to others' questions or thoughts would be very beneficial.  It would give the learner visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning experiences.



mosman library's flickr photostream

On a professional level, the Digital Library provided many examples for classroom use, ranging from kindergarten to post-secondary and in any subject area imaginable.  I watched a VoiceThread of a commercial students created, demonstrating collaboration and participation by all group members, as well as feedback from classmates and the instructor.  There were reflections from post-secondary on-line learners who commented on the benefit of using VoiceThread to better communicate as a result of being able to interpret tone, phrasing, and other aspect of verbal communication which are not experienced in written communication.  Students felt there was less occurrence of misinterpretation of a post when it was done verbally rather than typewritten.  Other examples demonstrated interpretations of poetry, lessons in math and sciences, as well as many other subject areas.  One particular VoiceThread inspired me to use this tool with novel studies, reading circles and book clubs.  In Book Review: A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park from C Vidor, Linda Sue Park educates the reader about the background and setting with visuals and commentary which create a foundation to better understand the story. 



BlackBurnPhoto's flickr photostream

I am currently working on Artemis Fowl with my grade 8 students, and we just did a review of the exposition of the novel.  I could have added so much more understanding with visuals of Ireland and other setting used in the novel.  With deeper knowledge of elements contained within the novel, students can better understand the author's choices for aspects such as location and era.  Further, to have such a resource and make it available online to parents and students allows those who miss the lesson or need to review for clarification the ability to access the information outside the classroom.  As stated in the tutorials on VoiceThread, it also allows the discussion to continue after the class has ended.  Some of my students who are reluctant to participate in class may feel more comfortable with this type of participation.

The key ingredient with VoiceThread is the collaboration aspect.  It is a "free online, asynchronous media tool [...]that permits the user to import and display a variety of media for the purpose of group discussion" (Berger & Trexler, p. 133).  People can contribute thoughts and comments in several ways (phone, microphone, text, webcam, and audio) and can doodle on the slides.  The creator of the VoiceThread can choose which comments to display, enhancing the learning in the presentation.  Again, I refer back to the Artemis Fowl novel study.  I recently did a class on the plot diagram.  As a class we drew from the chapters we have already read to build pieces of the plot diagram.  VoiceThread would have been a great place to collaboratively discuss and build the diagram. Further, it would be a great resource for students' final essays and projects for the novel study. 

Breathing in deeply (happy I'm just breathing at all) and enjoying the trek!  Moving forward with my sites set on the bigger picture - Google Earth!


References

Berger, P. & Trexler, S. (2010).  Choosing web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world. Sanata Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Wiki With Me - Quick and Easy Collaboration

What is a Wiki?

Wikis are really a simple tool to understand and use.  In a nutshell, they are an online site where any member of the wiki can add information, edit pages, and communicate with others, to extents determined by the wiki security settings.  It is a site for collaboration.  There are numerous tutorial and educational videos available to walk a person through defining it, using it and setting one up.  Honestly, the first wiki I ever set up I did without any assistance - it was that easy.  However, I recommend watching Wikis in Plain English - it is a great visual explanation of how a wiki works and the collaborative nature of the tool. 

TeacherTube Videos - What is a PBwiki? also provides some details as to what a wiki is and how it can be used.

The last tutorial which gives a great step-by-step instruction on using Wikispaces is this slideshare tutorial.

Wikispaces Tutorial UPDATED

View more presentations from Jennifer Dorman.

I know there are numerous wiki providers available, but I was already using Wikispaces and chose to explore this platform further.  Wikispaces has some quick and easy to follow tutorials to help you get set up and running with Wikispaces very quickly.  I hadn't watched these before.  Even though I had been using Wikispaces for a couple of months now, I learned about new tools and possibilities from these tutorials.  It was enough to help me take my wiki creation to the next level.

The first exciting discovery I made was under "Manage Wiki" on the sidebar of my Wikispaces.  I explored the tools to manage my wiki and found a very easy way to import a post from my Web2pt0Me blog into my wiki.  There is also a feature under widgits, which we will look at next, which allows you to add RSS feeds to your wiki as well.  This is a great way to compile information from a variety sources into one site.  Unfortunately, I was not able to get the feed to update automatically, so I would have to play around with that more to see if it can be done.

Under "Edit This Page" I had already figured out how to embed pictures, insert tables, upload files and create internal/external links.  However, I had not yet explored the widgets.  There are some very practical and enhancing tools which can be added to the wiki to increase it's value as a collaborative platform. 

First, let's look at the Wikispaces widgets:

I wanted to explore all these widgets to understand what they did and how they would enhance the functionality of the wiki.  And so my exploration began.

As mentioned above, I inserted an RSS feed into my wiki.  I used my Web2pt0Me URL for this.  The result was a list of all postings to date on my blog.  I could set the number of posts I wanted to appear, up to a maximum of fifteen.  I couldn't get new posts to appear, so it seems one would have to manually return to the site to look for any new posts.  Again, this is something I will have to look further into.

I then played with adding a calendar to my wiki.  There are a few choices of which calendar platform to add, however I went with Google Calendar because it is one that I have wanted to look into further.  I did get sidetracked from my wiki exploration when I entered the world of Google Calendar because there are so many interesting features and options available.  I did refocus myself and explored its function within a wiki.  I was able to embed my Google Calendar within the wiki page with great ease.  The steps are clearly explained and the template is extremely user friendly for embedding the html text.  Once embedded, I played with the size and location of the calendar on my wiki page, and saved it.  Any changes I make to my Google Calendar are updated automatically on the wiki.  I did not like the fact that a personal email address appeared on the top of the calendar, and will look further into how to address this issue.

Next stop for me was to look at the "Notify Me" page on the wiki tabs.  This feature allows a wiki member to subscribe to the feeds for new posts and/or comments.  This feature allows those interested in the site to be notified when new posts or comments are made, either through a RSS reader or email.  The benefit to this is members don't have to continually check the site for changes, the changes will come to them.

I easily embedded YouTube video to the site, which is a feature I like.  In a collaborative sense, videos which support the focus of the wiki can also easily be included either through embedding or linking.

The "History" page was also useful to look at.  It is a tool to follow the contributions of members to the wiki site, noting their changes and dates/times of contributions.  You simply chose the histories you want to compare, and the additions and deletions to the page are highlighted in green and red respectively.  When you review changes, you are taken to the changes that occured and in the order they occured in.

One last widget which is worth noting, especially as we want to teach our students to cite and reference sources, is the References widget.  This was extremely easy to add, and once the reference was added, I was able to cite the source within my wiki page. 

Okay, so that was the exploration I had time for right now.  There are other widgets and wiki managing tools I looked at, and they either seemed very straight forward or worthy of further investigation at a later time.  For now, I had many new tools to ponder in relation to personal and professional use.  It was enough; I was excited to start playing with these tools.

My Life - Wikified

As I was exploring the wiki tutorials, videos, and various other wiki resources, I kept thinking of how I could use this tool to help organize my ladies' ringette team.  Because wikis are so easy to set up, I created one specifically for the team.  I decided which widgets would make the site effective, efficient and user-friendly.  Currently my team members and I organize our game attendance and carpooling through email.  It is not always the most efficient because not everyone replies-all to the most current email, or early responders are forgotten by the time the last responses trickle in.  The wiki seems like a great alternative for our team.  The only down side I can see at this point is the ease of email response (which is often from our cell phones) verses having to access the wiki to respond. 

I included my Google Calendar.  I can input the game dates on my calendar and they appear on the wiki calendar.  Very useful.  I included a table for those who will attend the next game and those who won't (to encourage everyone to respond one way or the other).  I included a separate page for the team roster and contact information.  I also included a dialogue box so we could discuss carpooling arrangements (a favorite part of the weekly games).  In the end, I had a wiki for our team - I just need to ask everyone to join.  Once they do, they will be able to upload team pictures, tournament information, and other details that we discuss either in the change room or through email.



I would love if each of my kids' sports teams had a wiki set up.  I am not talking about the organization's website; I am talking about a wiki specific to my child's team.  It would make it so easy for me as a parent to organize our busy lives.  The ability to collaborate with other parents in organizing team fundraisers, tournaments, carpooling, sportswear, and the many other facets of the team would be so manageable.  The history would be there for quick reference, rather than searching numerous emails.

I can also picture using a wiki as a place to organize camping trips with friends and extended family, or any other event for that matter.  It would also be a great place to create a family tree, or a family sharing site (since my family extends across Canada and the United States).  For my family members who are leary of the public domain, we could even upgrade the account to include more private settings. 

I think the possibilities become endless once you begin to think of the many collaborative events we participate in on a regular basis.  Essentially, if it is collaborative, a wiki could be a good tool to use.

Wiki As A Professional Tool

My first experience with a wiki for a classroom project sold me on the use of wikis in the classroom.  I created a full blown inquiry project which housed all the lesson materials, resources, links, assessment and provided a great visual support for students, parents and teachers alike.  This has been an extremely easy lesson to share - I simply give someone the URL address, and they have everything they need.  I don't have to look up things saved on my computer, pull papers from a filing cabinet, or anything else - the wiki is my filing cabinet for the lesson. 

I am also proud to say I introduced our AISI coordinator to the wiki for a place where AISI leaders could collaborate on the critical thinking work we are doing as a district.  It is a great tool to link Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) which are separated by either distance or time constraints.  Further, it allows for easy transfer and sharing of materials, resources, links and any other relevant information. 

It is worthwhile to mention a few benefits available to educators through Wikispaces.  Firstly, educators can upgrade any K-12 educational wiki to a Plus account, which comes with additional features and data capacities.  However, for a $200/year fee, a Wikispaces account can be upgraded to Super, with even more file storage capacity.  As a collaborative tool for an organization, this is much more economical than providing release time for teachers to collaborate and share materials.  Further, if an organization wanted a completely private domain, the could upgrade to a Private Label.  This would be beneficial for organizations with tighter internet policies.

I had also used a wiki to create a pathfinder.  I am already considering how I will use a wiki to set up book clubs and literature circles for my language arts classes.  With the push for 21st century skills, particularly collaboration, web 2.0 tools such as wikis become an essential part of the classroom.

While I have touched on only a few of the possibilities for wikis, WebTools4u2use provides a comprehensive list of professional uses for wikis.  Also included are the necessary assessment rubrics when using wikis in the classroom.  It is an amazing site to explore.

Wikis can also be used in presentations and to support presentations, as shown in the NECC Librarians 2008 conference.

I think the list for the uses of wikis is endless, as the opportunities for collaboration continue to present themselves to me on a daily basis.  I just did a presentation this weekend with two other collegues.  In hindsight, because we came together from different locations, the wiki would have been a great place to collaborate. 

Although I did not explore all the widgets, I did get to look at the ones that are key to me right now.  I am excited there is still more to learn because working with the wiki has been fun.  Again, an awareness of the tool and its possible uses is key.  With that, you are well prepared to wiki at will!