Below is a sample project from a 6th grade student that I work with here at my school. Javier and his 6th grade peers worked on a math project where they had to study a bridge in their local community, take photos of it, and then compare it to another bridge. The students assembled their projects using their ed.voicethread spaces. Javier is only joining us for the current academic year. Next year he moves back to his home in Spain. His voicethread is narrated in both English and Spanish.
Here is the downside of ed.Voicethread. You may only leave a comment if you are part of the ed.voicethread network. This has been my quandry with the notion of ed.voicethread. The upside of ed.voicethread is that all students have their own unique space where they can build as much content as they'd like and then maintain it from year to year. I'm still in a quandry about whether or not to go with ed.voicethread on a larger scale in our middle school next year (and this isn't so much a financial decision as it is an issue of losing the capacity for authentic commenting/interaction).
well, what can I say? The voicethread speaks for itself .. it's great! Muy bien Javier!
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, it is only a shame it doesn't allow comments. I really get puzzled by those who advocate the use of the so called web 2.0 technologies , but then in the end create these "walled gardens" - so they call it - to which you need special permissions. What is the purpose of creating a beautiful garden if you don't allow others to enjoy and also contribute to the landscape you have help developed??
Matt, I think you are right. You should make this issue known to ed.voicethread and you can even tell them that this Portuguese living in the UK also wants to virtually travel to the US to comment on Middle school students' projects, which are just Fab, nad therefore deserve some words of appreciation.
what I am trying to say, I guess, is that sometimes it seems easier to move countries than to connect to people through the web. We don't want to believe that, do we? After all, this is the digital communication age, ....isn't it? ...maybe not in everyone's world...maybe not yet!
Cristina-
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you on this. At this point I'm thinking we will not subscribe to ed.Voicethread next year. Authentic commenting is what makes voicethread so powerful. I wish they offered some sort of subscription service at their voicethread.com network for schools, but currently I don't think they do.
While I love their software, I'm in a total quandry about how to use voicethread with students/teachers on a larger scale.
Thanks for the comment, Cristina! I showed Javier and he thought it was so cool!!!
Cheers!
Matt