Voicethreads

Voicethreads are easily my new favorite tool to use in the classroom! I love that you can take any kind of document, image, audio file or video clip and have a conversation around it. Educators around the globe are catching on to the power of Voicethread and getting their creative juices flowing!

A VoiceThread is an online media album that allows a group of people to make comments on images, videos, and documents, really simply. You can participate 5 different ways - using your voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam). It's easy to control who can access and comment on a VoiceThread, which makes it a secure place to talk about almost anything. A VoiceThread allows an entire group conversation to be collected from anywhere in the world and then shared in one simple place.

Click on the link below!!
 * Watch the following clip called "What is a Voicethread Anyway?"**

What is a Voicethread anyway?



Check out this wiki entirely devoted to using Voicethreads in education. Just choose your grade level or subject on the left hand side to see examples.

http://voicethread4education.wikispaces.com/

Here's a voicethread I started making using images from my trip to Costa Rica last May. Please feel free to comment using text or microphones!

media type="custom" key="7979418" Click the following link to view the voicethread full-screen. http://voicethread.com/share/1630485/

I've recently worked with teachers in Yonkers on using voicethreads in the classroom. Here are some links to projects the teachers completed:

Ms. Marty--School 13 Yonkers (Integrating Voicethreads in the English Language Learner classroom). Ms. Marty's class read Charlotte's Web and she designed her project around her student's pictures. They all came into the computer lab and commented using microphones. Each student commented on their own artwork using the text function. http://voicethread.com/share/1119419/

Ms. Graves--School 13 Yonkers (Integrating Voicethreads in the English Language Learner classroom). Ms, Grave's class visited Ellis Island on a school trip. Since Voicethread makes it easy to access the NY Public Library archives, the students were able to comment on some pretty amazing photos. They used a combination of text and voice in the computer lab and classroom.

Since voicethreads can be embedded into other programs (see above for my Costa Rica example), I just recently worked on a project with teachers on Google Earth and Voicethread. Teachers created projects such as the following...where they used several voicethreads exploring places in the neighborhood, that were then embedded into a Google Earth file!

Ms. Rivera--School 13 Yonkers (Where Do I Live? Integrating Google Earth Across the Curriculum) http://voicethread.com/share/1502782/ (this file was embedded into Google Earth--some of the other teachers used several voicethreads and embedded those into a Google Earth file that was set up with addresses of neighborhood locations)

Other projects teachers are currently working on:

A 2nd grade classroom read a picture book together where a dog visits various states in the US (mostly out west). They explored the states in Google Earth, then chose a state and drew pics and wrote about what they learned from the book. The teachers is setting up a voicethread for each state and incorporating the students' writing and drawings. Then the students will comment on each other's slides in a lab setting using microphones and text commenting. A class party is planned for sharing.

A 4th grade class is writing poetry and creating artwork about their neighborhoods. They will type them up and import into Voicethread. Using video cameras and audio recorders, the students will be reading their poems and then commenting on each other's work. The final result will be shared with families.

Creating Voicethreads at Har Torah

Har Torah now has it's own Voicethread network...hot off the presses (it was just recently set up and you are the first ones to use it). Each of you have your own account and the ability to create as many voicethreads as you'd like. If you'd like, you can also eventually create accounts for your students. Everything that is created is saved within your secure school educational network and not "shared" with anyone unless you say so.


 * Directions for Logging Into Voicethread:**

1. Open up a web browser. 2. Go to http://hartorah.ed.voicethreads.com 3. Log in with your username (your email address) and password (welcome) ___


 * A Note from Voicethread regarding supported file types:**

VoiceThread allows you to have conversations around almost any type of file: images, videos, documents, and presentations; but it is a big wild world of technological standards out there and so there will be many times when you run into a file that just doesn't work the way you expect it to. Here is a list of our currently supported file types, and advice on what to do when one of them doesn't seem to work.

Here are some basics that apply to all the files you might want to upload: Anyone with a paying account can upload an audio file as a comment. Currently we can accept and convert MP3 and WAV files.
 * First, always make sure that you are using the latest version of Adobe's Flash plugin which you can [|download here]**
 * Size. No single file can be larger than 25MB with a Free account, or 100MB with Pro and Educator accounts. If your presentation or video is larger than that, simply break it up into smaller files.
 * Originals. If you have a Pro or Educator account we will save and store your original file (excluding videos) so that you can allow others to download the original file. If the owner of the thread allows it, you can just right or control-click on any page within a VoiceThread to download the original document.
 * import from a link, if you enter the exact url of a file you can import it directly, but the link must be absolutely correct. Note that most 'links' to videos online do not point directly to the video file and so won't work. But do have the accurate file location of a video it should work.
 * Files you definitely can't upload, .zip .swf. .html .txt
 * Comments**
 * Comments**

JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, are all acceptable image types that you can upload into a VoiceThread. Because a VoiceThread can zoom in and out on images and documents, we recommend your images be at least 1280x960 (which a 2mp or higher camera can produce) so that when you zoom in on an image it appears crisp and detailed. We also except a number of less common image formats, including vector graphics like SVG -- just try uploading your content and see if it works.
 * Images**

It seems like we should have a list of all the video file types we accept but it gets a little complicated. There are a number of 'container' formats like QuickTime, WMV, and AVI, that are like an envelope containing the video; i.e. a QuickTime movie can be encoded by close to 40 different codecs. We can convert the vast majority of them but not all, so I can't say we can accept 'all' QuickTime, wmv, or avi videos, but we do accept most. Unfortunately a little trial an error is the only way to know for sure; we're constantly adding to the list of file types we support. Having said that, we can definitely recommend the best format, both for us to convert as well as produce the highest quality possible. There are only two key parameters: If you do those two things then the quality of the video prior to your upload should match the quality after, exactly. Of course your videos don’t have to be sized perfectly, or even use the H.264 compression codec, but if you want the absolute best results this is what you’ll need to do.
 * Video**
 * Use the H.264 codec to encode or compress your videos
 * Upload videos that precisely match the native size of a VoiceThread which is 600 X 450 pixels.
 * VoiceThread’s video doodling feature that allows you draw upon a video can only stop on ‘keyframes’ so if the subject of your video requires you to stop precisely in a fast moving video, e.g. a golf swing, then you’ll want more frequent keyframes. If you don’t know what we’re talking about that’s absolutely fine. The default settings will work perfectly 99% of the time.

DOC, DOCX, PDF, ODT, XLS, XLSX, ODS are all supported. If you are adding the document to the VoiceThread in order to provide additional printable materials to your participants, make sure to tell them how to download and print them(right or control-click anywhere on the document within the VoiceThread and select 'Download original') If a user right-clicks on page 5 of 30 in a document we'll allow them to download the entire original document that it was a part of. It's a very powerful way of distributing large presentations and documents, but if you don't tell them in your comment how to do this it's unlikely they'll figure it out on their own. If you're putting a document within your VoiceThread because you want to have a discussion about the text within it then we suggest changing the format to 'Landscape' mode(wider and shorter) and making your Text much bigger. You should also consider changing the default playback option to 'Open in Full Screen'. This will make it much more accessible and readable to your average participant. If you're unsatisfied with VoiceThread's conversion of your document, the most reliable format to use is PDF. The PDF format was designed for document portability and precise reproduction, so it's the best way to get exactly what you want. PPT, PPTX, ODP, and PDF are all supported presentation file types. When you upload a Presentation file we will store the original(if you have a Pro or Educator account) and then break it up into individual pages within the VoiceThread. All animations and transitions will be lost, and SWF files are not supported at this time. If you experience any formatting issues(strange fonts or layout etc.) after you've uploaded the presentation you should attempt to convert the original presentation to a PDF and then try again. While a VoiceThread allows you to have a conversation about almost any type of media, there are many times when a file simply won't work because of an uncommon or undocumented incompatibility with some element within the file. If you cannot convert the file to a format that VoiceThread will accept, send us a note via the contact form and we'll see if we can help. Also, if you are having consistent trouble uploading all kinds of files, then there is a good chance that you are on an unreliable network because of poor bandwidth or the network in not configured properly. Here is a link to a document that you can send on to your local network administrator that will help solve this kind of uploading trouble.
 * Documents**
 * Presentations**