Week 2- It's Starting to Click

Summer school is in full swing and I'm finally feeling like I've got a bit of a handle on all of the new technologies available to teachers.  VoiceThread.com is a site that allows users to post videos or voice-overs.  Last week our class did an activity with the site and everyone answered a few questions.  It was a little bizarre to hear my voice play back as I answered, but also pretty neat.  Once a thread is started, users can listen to the responses of everyone else on the thread, played in one sequence.  The end result was close to an hour of conversation between classmates.  I can definitely see myself using this technology in my future classroom.  I'm not sure that it is something an elementary teacher could assign as homework being that some students will not have access to internet at home.  However, as a tool in the classroom or as part of a lesson, I think it would work well.  Students with writing disabilities would certainly benefit from such a way of learning.  It is a free site, although users must be age 13 or over to create an account.  This road block may be alleviated by sending a permission slip home to parents.  That's a subject we are still discussing and working through in the MAT program.  Overall, I think VoiceThread is a great tool and I am delighted to discover it for classroom use as well as for communication between far-away friends!