Researching VoiceThread

VoiceThread is not a tool that the students of my school have been exposed to.  After participating in online presentations that have used the tool, I believe that it would be an excellent way of encouraging students to actively participate and share their thoughts, ideas, and opinions.  It appears that there is research that supports my belief that it would be an excellent tool for providing differentiated instruction for all learners.

Brunvand and Byrd (2011) researched the educational benefits of using VoiceThread in the K-12 classroom.  They concluded that Voicethread provided all students with the opportunity to demonstrate their strengths, was structured to be flexible enough to be used in all subjects, allowed student work to be archived, encouraged passive learners become actively involved, promoted collaboration in a variety of learning networks, and  differentiated teacher input and student output.  (p.31-33, 36).  

My current situation is that I need to decide if paying to create a classroom account will be worth the money.  The free account is limited to the creation of three VoiceThreads, and that won't last long when using it with students.  Brunvand and Byrd (2011) recommend the classroom account as it allows teachers to sign students up without the need for emails, gives teachers access to user names and passwords, and it allows all users to create and comment on VoiceThreads.  These features compliment the features available on all accounts, which include comment moderation and a minimal amount of technology required to access VoiceThread (p.31). 

The following page includes a number of tutorials that are useful for anyone looking to use VoiceThread for either educational or personal purposes: VoiceThread Tutorials

I am going to continue to play with my free personal account while I try to figure out how I would use this tool in the classroom.

References
Brunvand, S., & Byrd, S.. (2011). Using VoiceThread to promote learning engagement and success for all students. Teaching Exceptional Children, 43(4), 28-37.