VoiceThread is a ridiculously simple online program that allows students to comment on authentic materials, whether they be pictures, documents, web pages, or video. Students can provide written feedback to the material presented along with oral feedback via their computer mics, web cams, or cellular phones.
Voice Thread is very simple and fun to use it and students can work with authentic material. It is very good to practice listening comprehension and speaking.
I have always looked at and wondered about using VoiceThread but have never actually done it until I took this class. I'm happy that I finally used it and I'm thrilled to see all of the suggestions for World Language activities that people have shared.
Same as Anne! I only new about VoiceThread when I started Carla17 online course. Thanks for sharing this information. We can continue learning about all the advantages of it: free, facilitates learning through authentic materials, different modalities of response: oral, written, video, doodle.
This is a good reference that was made as a blog for Arabic Grammar, that I use all the time when teaching Arabic.I think the group can use the same idea and create simple grammar lessons in FL, these lessons can be useful for all the teachers teaching for example French, German all over the world.
"Information is everywhere and the ability to organize that information in meaningful ways is a powerful skill. How can we teach our students to effectively curate content? And how can we organize the resources available to us as educators?"
From the book:
"Since the first version of this book came out in 2005, the field of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has grown and changed. This update is the result of some of those changes. Our intent is to place pedagogical goals before technologies, as the literature advises but is not always followed in classrooms. In revising this book, as in the original, we assume that good teachers teach well because they bear in mind certain principles about how they can best help learners to learn language. Placing these principles at the center of attention makes it much easier for teachers to concentrate on the question of what constitutes effective computer-enhanced pedagogy and why.
This book takes as its organizing principles both the system of conditions that are known to support effective language learning and the goals that a variety of standards in the field have set out for us and our students.
Examples throughout the book underscore the need to consider theory in every aspect of the teaching and learning process. Some of the points in this book we have made in other places; other we discovered during the revision process. All told, this text provides a brief picture of what CALL classrooms can be like today. Of course, that could change tomorrow."
By
Natascha Chtena
November 22, 2015
5 Comments
.blog-spacer {
display: none;
}
@media (max-width: 420px) {
.blog-spacer {
display: block;
height:1px;
clear:both;
}
}
googletag.cmd.push(function() {
googletag.display("dfp-ad-story_level_pages");
});
Natascha Chtena is a PhD student in Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. You can follow her on Twitter @nataschachtena.
One of the challenges I face teaching a daily language class is finding novel and creative ways to maintain student interest throughout my lessons. One of my favorite teaching “tricks” is using music to motivate learning, improve concentration, create a sense of community and help my students absorb material.
Music is a wonderful tool to integrate into your teaching repertoire, especially if you are a foreign language teacher. It has a
The key is to not be too ambitious (unless of course you are teaching a language AND culture class) and to set realistic goals: one song one major point! I usually keep it to seven minutes max, which includes a song, a very short “lecture” and some time for student questions at the end.
where I asked students to compile a short (German) playlist that describes their personality, explaining what it is about each song that speaks to them and/or that they identify with.
By
Natascha Chtena
November 22, 2015
5 Comments
.blog-spacer {
display: none;
}
@media (max-width: 420px) {
.blog-spacer {
display: block;
height:1px;
clear:both;
}
}
googletag.cmd.push(function() {
googletag.display("dfp-ad-story_level_pages");
});
Natascha Chtena is a PhD student in Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. You can follow her on Twitter @nataschachtena.
One of the challenges I face teaching a daily language class is finding novel and creative ways to maintain student interest throughout my lessons. One of my favorite teaching “tricks” is using music to motivate learning, improve concentration, create a sense of community and help my students absorb material.
Mus
Music is a wonderful tool to integrate into your teaching repertoire, especially if you are a foreign language teacher. It has a way of capturing everything about a culture, its people and their language and it can inspire interest in a subject matter when other methods have failed. Not to mention that students love it and benefit from it intellectually and emotionally (even when they find your music taste questionable).
I use songs all the time and students love it. it is useful for grammar, vocabulary and culture. most of the time students start following on youtube the singer and present to class new songs from the same singer.
My students (college level) really enjoy any music I bring into the classroom. Usually, I use it because it fits a grammar or vocabulary theme. I'd love to expand my use of music with my students.
My students also love to listen to songs in the target language. As you said, it is useful to work not only the language (grammar aspect) but also the cultural part. In my classes, I try to play 1 minute of music in Spanish before starting the class. They really enjoy it and even bring me more songs suggestions in the target language to play the next day.
I like the idea of keeping the song length to a minimum. Sometimes the students get off task, especially if they don't like the song. Thanks for the idea! I love it when they tell me they've added the song to their own playlists!
As a German instructor, I find music also is a great way to bring more traditional texts to life--lots of poems become more exciting to students when combined with a setting by Schubert or Strauss (for example), even if the student isn't initially interested in either poetry or classical music. (I have a video of Schubert/Goethe's "Erlkönig" that adds another dimension through a sort of cartoon horror-story video--so it's text plus music plus visuals.) With this much to discuss, it can easily fill half of a class session or provide the basis for a larger project. Still, I also like the shorter use of music as a way to add energy to many different topics without taking over the lesson.
VoiceThreads might best be described as interactive media albums
The technology is particularly accessible because viewers can comment using just about any technology -- including a good old landline. "We've tried to make it fairly universal in access," says Ben Papell. "If you don't have a microphone
This is why I like Voice Thread the most because it is accessible to everybody even teachers and students that are new to the world of technology.
when he discovered he could engage his kids online in a collaborative, multimedia slide show called a VoiceThread, he decided to see if he could use it to, as he puts it, "steal some of their online minutes."
Teachers can keep VoiceThreads private or publish them, either on the VoiceThread site or embedded on their own sites. Participants can post from anywhere, at any time, making it easy to involve groups in disparate time zones, or even different countries, in a single conversation.
I also like it because it also allows for interactivity and facilitate learning through communities.
"Take it slow -- don't upload 600 images and try to get fifty people to comment on each and every one," he says. "One of the great things is that it will take off on its own."
I see this benefit--giving voice to students who might normally not speak because of shyness or because of a few dominant personalities in the class--as one of the main benefits of online video/comment tools like VoiceThread.
It is good to have a free tools, because when we ask school to buy it for us it takes a long time and sometimes we do not get approved, if you know more app that are useful for class luse ike the VoiceThread, I hope you can share it with me.
I'm still learning about all of the features of MS Teams, but this one surprised me. I can imagine it being a good tool for synchronous and asynchronous language learning - not just video conferencing.
App Integrations
I love this feature: When you need to take things up a notch, you can use some of the most popular apps in education right inside the Teams environment, including Kahoot!, Nearpod, Quizlet, and Flipgrid. If a particular app will be used frequently by a group, you can add a designated tab to a channel just for that app, so users can get to it quickly.
I agree that app integrations is the best feature. We are using Canvas for our classes at my institution but we are also using Teams for university wide communication. Both are new but the experience so far has been positive. I may follow up on the advise to start a small project on Teams to learn more about its best features in building a collaborative classroom. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for posting this, Jordan, and reminding me that here at UofL we've got MS Teams as an additional resource! I've just check to see if there's the possibility of integration with Blackboard and it appears there is. (I'm glad to have the option for synchronous class meetings, since I've always found Blackboard Collaborate to be a little baroque in its layout....)
Thanks for the tip @greghutcheson ! It hadn't occurred to me to look for Teams/Blackboard compatibility. I'm not sure yet if I prefer Teams over Blackboard Collaborate, but if one runs more smoothly than the other, that would be my pick!
Excellent integration of one single tool to create interactive experiencing, analyzing 7 interpreting activities and a final 'applying' activity for assessment.
the teacher can provide them with a variety of other paintings where each group of students creates their own Thinglink with questions and/or activities that help to analyze that additional work of art
where the instructor has added trigger points with questions that help focus students on particular aspects of this famous painting
n-depth interpretive “close reading” of the painting.
each student can take on another painting of his or her own, but this time they can add descriptions, videos, and URLs to demonstrate what they understand about this final work of art. Consider using this final activity as a presentational performance assessment where students use skills, functions
As a teacher or school staff member, there are things you can do in the battle against online bullying.
Support: Provide the person being bullied with support and reassurance. Tell them that they did the right thing by telling. Encourage the child to get help from parents, the school counsellor, principal or teachers. Ensure they know that there is support there for them
Evidence: Help the child keep relevant evidence for investigations. This can be done by taking screenshots or printing web pages. Do not allow the deletion of phone messages
Inform: Give the child advice for making sure it does not happen again. This can include changing passwords, contact details, blocking profiles on social networking sites or reporting abuse online
No Retaliation: Ensure that the young person does not retaliate or reply to the messages
Privacy: Encourage the child to keep personal information private on the internet
Investigation: The cyberbullying claim needs to be investigated fully. If the perpetrator is known, ask them to remove offending remarks or posts. All records should be kept as part of the investigation.
Report: Abuse on social networking sites or through text messaging needs to be reported to the websites and mobile phone service providers
Guidelines: Your school will have a number of policy documents which you can refer to. These include the Acceptable Use Policy, Anti-bullying policies and Behaviour and Disciplinary Policies
From a post in the ACTFL distance learning SIG:
"It is a free tool. Class Kick allows you to add interactive elements to synchronous lessons. You can monitor and see student activity in real time. You can also use it to communicate with individual students in real time." - Angela
thanks for sharing Roxana. I really like how this blog discusses the language and cultural uses of using voicethread to create learning communities. It provided me many practical examples I can use in my classroom to help students focus on langauge development while using the technology. This post puts the focus on learning not on the technology. The handouts are great supports that help students stay on the learning track and because of this, the coummunity of learning is built. I was a little concerned by the deficit language used on the scoring rubric for asynchronous content. I will probably use something similar by change the wording to be a little more constructive, as meaning can be lost online and harsh wording can be misinterpreted.
This is a YouTube video that introduces how to use Google Classroom. I sometimes like to watch video tutorials about how to use new technology because they give me a better idea about how the platform, website, tool will function for students.
If you're looking for new material on YouTube, you can follow certain people's/organizations "channels," you can create public or private "playlists" of videos to save for yourself, or you can search for existing "playlists" that others have created.
YouTube Task #5: The Search
Showing a good video in a language class can immensely improve a typical lesson but the search can take a ton of time. This is where I spend the majority of my planning time because once I find a good one, it is the foundation for the entire lesson. I have 5 video searching tips to make it a little easier for you and…
But wait! Let’s change this up a little. I want to add that this is how I show my STUDENTS to find great videos. The person doing all the work is doing all the learning. – A Wise Educator
As soon as I can, I teach my students how to find relevant videos
Koltay—and likely most of you who are reading this column—have observed how Web 2.0 and the use of folksonomies have created conditions that result in information overload. When we provide applications that let users manage information, and those users have limited to no awareness of knowledge organization for the Web, the information architectures that evolve for users and the entire system may be less than optimal.
Since most users are not equipped to produce sound classification schemes or efficient top-down taxonomies on their own, their impact on any system creates what I call a literacy gap, depicted in Figure 6. Depending on the other signatures of information overload that play out in users’ interaction with a system, the consequences of their literacy gap can lead to information overload. Koltay’s article makes this claim, and I agree.
The above excerpt reminds me of a collaborative review project that we did in my class at the end of the last school year. We broke down each unit and lesson that we had covered into chunks and each student was supposed to make virtual flashcards (on quizlet.com) with their chunk of the material. Some students did great while others were absolutely lost while using the computers. It had a deleterious effect on the overall project. As I try to imagine implementing more web resources with the goal of productive communication and interaction in L2, I am troubled by the disparity of web/computer literacy among students. I don't mean to sound negative, but it is something I really struggle with. What about the students who lack the necessary skills?
Even when working with teachers, we find this in workshops. We tend to pair/group teachers, so they can help each other out - have you tried that with students?
Yes, I did assign pairs. Some students are smartphone literate and seem to have little to no interest in anything desktop. Hmmm...perhaps I should try focusing on the ipads.
Yes, while Twitter is most engaging when tweets are firing away, it is also a poster child for propagating information overload.
There was a hyperlink to an article about whether we should still teach cursive. Apparently high schools are not doing it any more. My son stopped cursive in about the 5th grade and didn't have to use it and now he is struggling at the university because he can't read when the professor uses cursive in anything, like comments on his papers. I have to print when I leave him a note. Wow, technology is wiping out one of the long-standing activities that took humans decades to develop.
I have to wonder if kids can write notes well without using cursive. I'd struggle and I still write by hand quicker than I can peck things out on a keyboard. Spell/grammar check are helpful, but I still wonder if the student pays any attention to corrections and can't write well without this automated help.
I like the balanced way this piece presents some of the pros and cons of technology in education. Just this week I had a conversation with another educator who has encountered recent studies suggesting a link between handwriting (of any kind) and certain cognitive development. Some schools are now emphasizing handwriting instruction because it helps boost students' academic achievement.
My daughter is 8 years old and she started learning cursive this year. So it must be back! I'm not sure if will help boost her achievement or not, but I'm glad she is learning it. I think the article made a good point about how students today have a short attention span and easily get off track. If they are typing a paper on the computer, for example, they can open a browser and start surfing the web. They don't necessarily stay focused on the task at hand. It is even hard for me sometimes. If I don't ignore email (just put it off until later, I mean), I would never get anything done!
Very helpful for those who are still getting to know ACTFL standards. Includes short, non-jargony descriptions for studnts, and linked PDFs with various skills/tasks that they can check off for monitoring of their own progress in the interpersonal, presentational, and interpretive modes.
Whenever I ask my students to use a new web app I go record myself signing in and doing an example.
Recording your computer screens into a digital video (screencasting) for class tutorials can come in handy when flipping the classroom. You can record yourself using an online tool, reciting a presentation, or guide students through a website. You can even record streaming video online – though you will still have to follow copyright rules when recording online video. This post will compare two popular screencasting tools: Camtasia (which cost money) and Screencast-O-Matic (free).
Abstract: Collaborative social interaction when using Web 2.0 in terms of VoiceThread is investigated in a case study of a Swedish university course in social psychology.
The results show that use of Web 2.0: a) supports students' reflections concerning their own and others' thoughts and emotions, b) supports individual students and integrates them into a work group, and c) develops students' identification and awareness in relation to self, a task and others.
Reflection is a core component of many outdoor education programs with many educators relying on journal writing as a means of facilitating reflection.
We speculated that it might be worth trying to engage these students with "their technology," and in this paper we explore if and how Web 2.0 technologies can support student journal writing behaviours in outdoor education.
With the advent of Web 2.0 tools, additional language educators can extend their classrooms beyond the traditional brick-and-mortar walls to communicate with the world. One of the best ways to do so is to introduce VoiceThread into language lessons. In doing so, students can create conversations that extend across the classroom or across the globe.
This review takes a look at current digital storytelling protocols and strategies currently displayed through VoiceThread creations, as well as detailed strategies conducive for a powerful digital storytelling tool such as VoiceThread.
This article documents the curricular decisions made by a teacher educator research team whose guiding theoretical focus for intern practice is dialogic instruction. Over a 2-year sequence, teaching interns used video and Web 2.0 technologies to respond critically to and revise their teaching practices in collaboration with peers and instructors.
I found this by chance just exploring around. If you check the SUPPORT section on the VoiceThread site, you will find a list of publications. They posted a collection of abstracts with links of scholarly articles written about using VoiceThread for language learning, K-12, higher education and professional development. I just skimmed through the lists, and some of the articles are accessible, while some are behind a password.