VoiceThread is a piece of educational technology fully integrated with Brightspace. Instructors can use the tool to create interactive media/lectures and students can use the tool to create multi-layered presentations or complete assignments. You can see some examples of the tool in action on the VoiceThread website.
Some use cases include:
- Interactive Lectures: Rather than sharing a slide deck with students, instructors can use VoiceThread to make their slide deck interactive. They would do so by inserting comments and questions at certain points throughout the presentation to help make the learning materials a little more active than passive.
- Asynchronous discussions: rather than use a traditional discussion forum, VoiceThread can allow students to have discussions on and around a central image, video, or other type of media.
- Informal peer review exercises: When using the Class View in VoiceThread, students can see each others’ submissions and comment on them
- Language learning: When using VoiceThread Assignments, students can be asked to submit audio files demonstrating their ability in language pronunciation. You can refer to Professor Wenteng Shao’s Teaching Innovation Award for doing just this. These assignments can also be formally evaluated in VoiceThread with grades sent to the Brightspace Grades tool.
- Presentations: Students can create and share multimedia presentations, incorporating images, documents, and videos into their work. They can additional provide narration over their project.
There are many other use cases for VoiceThread. If VoiceThread sounds like a tool you’d be interested in using, please refer to our VoiceThread documentation and reach out to your Office of TEI liaison for some guidance on implementing the tool.