Together, we created a Voicethread presentation on how blogs support teaching and learning.
Our Voicethread presentation:
http://voicethread.com/share/2294629/
We used a Google doc to communicate and sort out logistics (see immediately below). Our REFLECTIONS are in this post's COMMENTS section.
hi all, can we embed our google doc for this week's activity in here somehow?
ReplyDeletewe collaborated a lot there but that's not reflected here. unless we go in and copy/paste our individual comments chronologically...
I'll embed it.
ReplyDeleteReflection on the use of Voicethread as a learning tool:
ReplyDeleteI now understand why my students seem incapable of getting stuff done outside of class. It's almost like as soon as they leave the room my subject ceases to exist until they enter next lesson.
It's the same with me as a student and this week was an example of that. Trying to get everyone together online to arrange the finer details was difficult. I think we did a great job getting everything up and ready for the class, but I can really appreciate the frustrations that some of my students have when collaborating online. I'm not being critical of my teammates here - far from it - I think it was really our collective skills and hard work that got this together - so I can now imagine how hard it would be for a less motivated and capable group. I really need to rethink how I do these sorts of things at work now.
That said - on to Voicethread. A great online tool - but it is still very linear so does not readily lend itself to immersed collaboration - what i mean is that we are still really just working in isolation on a group task. We all put up our comments and I guess it was our need to do everything perfectly that precluded us from really exploring what I think would be the best part of this - having an online conversation with statements and responses and a real conversation. It may be better than a face to face discussion as you have time to absorb other people's comments and prepare your own response, but it would also have that forced awkwardness of delayed responses.
I like Voicethread and am now using it in my classroom. My year 7 class has to do a quick research project on the novel we are reading and I've asked them to use wither Voicethread or Prezi to display their results. Should be interesting to see how they approach this and what issues they felt there were in using this outside of face to face time.
It was interesting working with voicethread. I think it could potentially be a great collaboration tool. Perhaps because we used it on one occasion, my proficiency with voicethread is limited. I found it quite cumbersome, and had a lot of trouble with the marker function. Every time I would circle something on what I thought was 'my' section of the presentation, the circle would appear elsewhere in the voicethread.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that though, i still think with enough practice and getting used to the application, voicethread could really help students to work together. Even working together to resolve issues would bring students together as a team.
Reflection on using Voicethread:
ReplyDeleteI didn't feel that Voicethread had the most intuitive interface, but once I got used to using it, it was actually quite simple.
It is interesting that sometimes precisely because a tool is simple (in this case, combining a slideshow of images with the ability for different people to add audio easily to each page) it can create a variety of affordances. Voicethread would be good for an art class, for example, where students could all leave an audio comment about how an image makes them feel.
Reflection on using blogs:
ReplyDeleteIn this module, as discussed in some of our Google docs, it took us a while to figure out how best to use our blog.
The main issue was visual organization. We experimented with using a Google site but some of us found it less easy and quick to post on the Google site. We experimented with tagging our posts on our blog, but found that there was still a long page of post after post, and that it was not easy to see the weeks' topics/assignments at a glance. Our solution was finally to use each post to describe the assignment and post any whole group collaborations, but for all our reflections to go into the comments section. That way, there were fewer posts on the blog, all our reflections related to a week's topic were in one place underneath that week's topic description (in the comments), and you could see the weeks' topics at a glance when looking at the blog, rather than having to scroll down through reflection posts, or having to rely purely on labels (tags).
This experience taught me that many technologies can be used in ways that suit the user and not always in the most obvious way, as long as the user is creative and takes time to experiment.
Further issues:
ReplyDeleteI also found that our "reflections in the comments" system required us to write comments in the body of the posts reminding the reader/viewer to "please see the comments for our reflections". Since the comments are usually just meant for comments, we had to ensure that it was clear where our reflections were. Using a technology in a slightly different way from usually intended does require some vigilance regarding ensuring that the user/viewer understands how to use it/navigate it.
It wasn't easy to show who had contributed what, because when one of us had posted a post on behalf of the whole group (since only one person can), and all of us had contributed to, tinkered at, and edited that post, the only name that would show up in the blog's system would be of the person who had first posted on behalf of the group. Luckily, since we all contributed actively every week (we had a good group!), it is hopefully clear from the posts and comments that everyone was active in every post.