Voicethread is a type of online software that allows people view a multimedia display and participate with commentary or image manipulation. The example you can see above is ed.voicethread a site devoted specifically to using Voicethread technology for educational purposes. There are many other applications of the technology such as in social networking and in business conferencing.
I found the technology a little confronting at first as I was not sure how I personally would use it and there are many ways to do the same task.
The educational possibilities however are very useful as it seems to be a template for a virtual classroom. A cohort from across the globe could participate in a discussion or critical analysis of stimulus material. The knowledge gained could then be applied in designing their own presentation for submission and peer review during assessment. The example being of slideshare presentation of artwork (maybe produced on a theme) created by the learner and submitted. Feedback would be given using the enunciated rules of netiquette.
Engagement theory as espoused by Shneiderman (1988) is well suited to this type of technology as the Relate-Create-Donate model would be exemplified by the cooperative nature of the technology and it would only take the subject matter to be appropriate to the cohort and have some altruistic goal embedded to fit the model completely.
Shneiderman, B. (1988), Relate-Create-Donate: An educational philosophy for the cyber-generation. Computers & Education, in press.
Hi Stuart,
ReplyDeleteThe applications for VoiceThread are incredible and indeed it can be used across the world. Learners could even go onto the technology at home and have discussion with their peers.
Cheers,
Kira.