Michelle

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Voice thread is a great way to incorporate art and creativity with writing. I like how it can be used in the classroom with small groups of students or individually. Voice thread is a great twenty first century tool because it is a digital storytelling device that allows students’ narratives to be shared and reflected on. It allows for teachers, and students to provide feedback to students by leaving comments through the microphone, text, or video with webcam. Classes have the option of making their projects private or open for anyone to see. Constructing a narrative fractured fairytale voice thread was a great way for me to use the literacy standards while also using my creative and artistic skills. Another great way to use this in the classroom for example would be if I was going to start a science topic on climate, than before I even begin teaching on climate, I could create a voice thread and have all my students upload texts, pictures, videos, and comments about what they already know about climate. Then after I teach, I could have my students go back and revise what they know and collaborate what they learned into the voice thread. If there are certain ongoing climate issues and threats that the students want to share with others than they can do so through the voice thread by making it available for anyone to see.

I found voice thread to be very simple and easy to use. I did not experience any difficulties uploading images or comments. I think that Voice thread would be even better though if it allowed students to create slides and text with different fonts and colors. I had to create my own text box images with the style of font that I wanted for my opening and closing slides.