Voicethread Challenge for Science Teachers and Students.

Voicethread is a wonderful tool for student interaction.  It is intuitive to use, and lets students comment in a variety of ways to suit their confidence.  With little training a whole class can all participate in the creation of a multimedia gem which will capture the key concepts, support less confident students and allow the most able to shine. See my introductory Voicethread post if you don't know VT is!  

Voicethread Challenge for Science Teachers and Students.

"Write up" your next lab experiment with a whole class on the Interactive Whiteboard, using Voicethread.

Image: Phoebe Oreilly

Depending on your class size you may prefer to ask students to write up the experiment in your usual way, and call up groups of students to participate at the whiteboard in turn.

Have the following four files ready to upload.

1. A Photo of the experiment apparatus
2. Word document - results table
3. Excel graph of the results
4. Conclusion / Evaluation questions - as a PowerPoint slide.

The Challenge  (PDF - "Handout" )

1. Upload the four different file types about the experiment into a new Voicethread (VT).
2. Comment on the new VT as a whole class at the interactive whiteboard using one account and different Identities.
1. Type or record with a microphone comments to describe the method on the first slide,
2. Use comments to describe the results in the table on slide two.
3. Doodle on the graph while recording with the microphone to show trends in the results, outliers, scatter of data, reliability of data etc.
4. Give answers to the conclusion / evaluation questions on slide 4
5. Set a homework for the class to add further comments.
6. Please leave a link to the finished project and a few words in the comment box below.

Top Tips for success.

1. Check your Network & Security settings allow website access to microphone and webcam
   look at the VT Network Requirements, or pass them to your network administrator.
2. Test your volume settings before recording comments. (right click over VT- choose settings)
3. Avoid overlaps between Powerpoint images and words ( or use pdf )
4. Students copying and pasting vast blocks of text as a comment
5. Student shyness about talking into a microphone
6. Upgrade to free "educator VT" to get 50 free Voicethreads.
7. Join in conversations at the beginning.
8. Give students chance to plan their contributions before speaking. (nice handout)
9. If you want to avoid risks yourself let the students upload the images for you.