Solving a Pandemic Problem – Hosting a Virtual Poster Session with VoiceThread

This is a guest post by Nursing Educator and VoiceThread, Dr. Carol Persoon Reid. Poster Sessions are a staple at most professional conferences, and nursing is no different. Students in the capstone course of the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program were assigned to create a poster to highlight the scholarly project each completed in the clinical practicum portion of the course. The Poster Session was to be an opportunity to showcase the culmination of a semester-long 180-hour clinical practicum and provide an opportunity to practice presenting and attending a conference poster session. … Continued

Using VoiceThread for Online Portfolios

This is a guest post by Educator and VoiceThreader, Astrid Wilches. Some years ago, while working on a virtual environment with limited opportunities to interact, VoiceThread gave me the chance to connect more personally with my students. Being able to talk to their peers and teacher created a bond that simply couldn’t be done in the written fashion that the class platform provided. The fact of having an application that could bring students together to discuss a given topic was priceless, so VoiceThread became the tool of choice for all my virtual and distance classes at that time. … Continued

Student Led Conferences Paired with VoiceThread

This is a guest post by educator and VoiceThreader, Kelle Stroud. Buckland Mills Elementary School implemented Student Led Conferences 9 years ago. It was our goal to provide an opportunity for the students to be at the center of the conference and lead the way in sharing their learning. We also wanted to engage our community and have them play a significant role with their child in the conference. The traditional conference with the teacher and parent only gave a glimpse into the ability of their child due to time limits and structure of the conference. … Continued

VoiceThread A to Z: Creating Portfolios with VoiceThread

In this final installment of the VoiceThread A to Z series, we’ll be discussing portfolios. In our previous posts in this series, we discussed ways to start your year, use VoiceThread for storytelling, presentations, as a discussion board replacement and for assessments. You can find those posts here: VoiceThread A to Z posts.  Portfolios can be a great way to illustrate progress over the course of a semester. Many students don’t see the progress they have made until they can compare work they completed early in the year with the work they produce later. … Continued

Are you an #EdTech Hoarder?

Is your EdTech toolbox getting crowded? There are literally hundreds of tools for educators to use for a wide variety of purposes ranging from class discussions to lecture capture to portfolios and a dozen other categories. There are expensive learning management systems and “free” tools supported by advertising dollars and student data collection. There are tools dedicated just for assessment and tools designed for presentations. There are so many options. … Continued

Spanish Portfolios and VoiceThread Commenting

This is a guest post by Spanish educator and VoiceThreader, Laura K. Sexton, MA/NBCT.  There are three people that need to see my students’ VoiceThread e-portfolios for Spanish: them, me, and everyone else. E-portfolios help my students watch themselves grow, and VoiceThread allows them to demonstrate that growth in their reading and writing as well as their speaking and listening— something you just can’t do on paper. Portfolios, unlike tests or quizzes, also help me evaluate not just the depth, but also the breadth of each student’s Spanish abilities. … Continued

VoiceThread: An Online Counterpart to the Traditional Design Studio

This is a guest post by design instructor and VoiceThreader, Jody Lawrence. I integrated VoiceThread into my freshman design studio to facilitate instructor and peer critiques, and to promote student dialogue and networking with practicing designers around the country. The students embraced the technology as an enhancement to their in-person studio experience, sharing that the tool introduced continuity to their learning throughout the week, and improved the quality of scheduled, in-class time. … Continued

VoiceThread Portfolios: Capturing the Creative Process

This is a guest post by educator and VoiceThreader Jonathan Lewis. As a classroom teacher, sound assessment practices have always been a challenge, especially as we strive towards meeting the diverse needs of all of our learners. This challenge becomes even more complex due to differentiation, descriptive feedback, and the diverse technological tools our students are using to communicate their learning. Throw in a dash of Problem or Inquiry-based Learning and you have the perfect storm of open learning opportunities, leaving you to wonder how you are going to capture anything. … Continued

Using VoiceThread with GlobalCOlab

This is a guest post by teacher and VoiceThreader, Brian Jones. This week GlobalCOlab is being featured at the Scandinavian Education Technology Transformation (SETT) Conference taking place in Stockholm, Sweden. GlobalCOlab stands for Global Collaborative Labs. In GlobalCOlab, students from different schools around the world collaborate to investigate global issues and how those issues affect their communities. An example is the Watershed Project involving GlobalCOlab students from Malaysia, Sweden, Ohio, and Norwalk, California (my classroom) all collaboratively designing solutions to watershed problems. … Continued