Voicethread, so cool!

If you have not discovered Voicethread, you are really missing a great thing.
Voicethread is an online media (pictures, videos, voice) colaboration project that lets you
intereact in 5 different ways.
I have started to use voicethread on a personal and professional level.

I would like to share with you two projects I posted recentlly

Project #1

Project name: La rana Rene
Target language: Spanish
Goal: Interactive language practice
Participants: My 6th yr old daugther (in USA) and my 6 yr old nephew (in Mexico)
Challange: The two participants live in different countries: USA and Mexico.
Media tools: Skype and Voicethread.
Note: You do not need to have Skype installed in your computer.

How did I do it:

1 I Downlodaded a series of pictures on my (previously installed) Voicethread, so the kids can leave messages on them.
2. I called my newphew through Skype to Mexico.
3. I invited my nephew to my Voicethread (my sister helped of course)
4. I added him as a Voicethread friend
5. While speaking through skype, my daughter left the first message and my nephew's followed.
6. There were not scipts of any kind. What you hear on the Voicethread is the two kids making
up a story as soon as they saw the pictures.
7. This project fosters creative thinking, language practice and interpersonal relations.
8. Kids had the best time recordding and sharing words they did not know.

Possible applications: Language arts, foreign languages, story time.

I particularly loved:
1. The idea of posting pictures, clip art, or art that your own kids or students made, and have them create original stories.
2. The didactic opportunity while keeping in touch with a far away loved one or friend.




Project # 2

This project was created during my afternoon 6th grade Hebrew class yesterday. I showed my students the Voicethread application and right away they wanted to create something. So I decided to do a review on some hebrew vocabulary. They loved it!

1. I copy and pasted some pictures from my clip art files.
2. I let students practice words in hebrew.
3. Students took turn recording their messages.



As homework, I will be posting more pictures and their assignment will be to leave a message for each picture. The message will be of course, the correct pronunciation for each picture. You do not have a microphone in your computer to leave a message?
No problem, you can actually leave a message using your own phone (Explanation follows after next movie.)




Possible applications: Language learning and practice. Also any other possible subject.

I loved: The fact that you can actually post something and ask the students to leave messages as homework.