Convore – Convore is a quick way to instant message with groups of friends in real-time (free)

Diigo – Collect, organise and share with diego. Bookmark, highlight text and images, add sticky notes to webpages

Dropmocks – Create and share image galleries online by dragging photos into your browser

Padlet – Possibly the easiest way to create and collaborate in the world

Pinterest – An online pin board. Organise and share things you love

Piratepad – Work collaborately online via a simple text editor updated and shared in real time

PrimaryPad – Work collaborately online via a web 2.0 word processing document

Sync.in – A web 2.0 based word processor for people to collaborate in real-time

Stixy – Create your own online bulletin boards by sticking notes, appointments, files, photos on the screen for yourself or for others to see (free)

Scribblar – Designed for creative, real-time collaboration. Users can collaborate on the creation and editing of images, drawings or even mathematical equations (free)

Titanpad – Lets people work on one document simultaneously. Good for collaborative teaching and learning tasks (free)

TypeWith.me – Web 2.0 tool that allows users to collaborate on a single document

Wallwisher – An online notice board maker where anyone can place messages or other media on the screen. Good for group discussion and collaboration (free)

Padlet (formerly Wallwisher) is a free application to create an online bulletin board that you can use to display information for any topic. Easily create an account and build a new board. You can add images, links, videos, and more.

Marqueed is the next best thing to having everyone in the same room. Markup and Discuss Your Images. Literally “point” to areas and have threaded discussions right over the image. You can even use the freehand tool to draw out your ideas.

Work with a real-time whiteboard.

Deekit is an online whiteboard. It is an unlimited canvas for you and your team to create content. Together, in real time. It is a virtual space for teamwork on any device, wherever you are.

Voicethread

Voicethread Examples in Education from Suzie Vesper

Brad Wilson - Engaging Learners with VoiceThread

http://voicethread4education.wikispaces.com/Best+Practices

Permission to use these tools must be obtained from parents if the students are under the age of 13

List of research articles in K-12

http://ed.voicethread.com/support/resources/publications/k12/

Educators' getting started manual

http://ed.voicethread.com/media/misc/getting_started_educator_mpb.pdf

Good series of webinars - comprehensive introduction one

http://ed.voicethread.com/about/features/trainingswebinars/

Make sure not to check the box that includes the Voicethread you have created on their browser - this will make sure your Voicethread remains private as only those who have the link will be able to access it.

http://teachweb2.wikispaces.com/VoiceThread

IDEAS FOR THE CLASSROOM

· Share reflections about a historical photograph.

· Share favourite characters in a novel read by the class.

· Use historical pictures, do research and give the report orally while viewing the visual.

· For art, language arts, math and science lessons can become more alive and realistic using this technology.(explaining art work/techniques, book reviews, book advertisement, science labs/dissecting, doing hobbies, sewing, etc.

· Geography comes alive with photographs of people and places.

· Students can present digital book reports.

· Students can create a get well card for a home bound friend.

· Students can create a year end class thread.

· Students can share facts or reflections about a field trip

· Use Voice Thread as a writing prompt. See example above.

· Students can reflect on a speaker they just heard.

· Get input from community members on your student’s work

· Find collaborators for VoiceThread projects here

· Use Voice Thread to leave prepared lessons when teacher is absent and assist substitute teachers.

· Create a power point to explain the life cycle of a plant and then use voice thread to explain each step.

· Second Grade Spanish - Muzzy and Friends

· Science Experiment

· Area of a Triangle

· What do you know about Anne Frank?

· Ed Tech blog about Voice Thread

· Gregor the Overlander Character Map

· To Kill a Mockingbird - Tenth Grade

· Faces of the World

· What Do You Value?

· Recipe for Houisin Rice

· Using Voice Thread as a Writing Prompt

· Clever Voice Thread about Pants

· Forest Animals

· Peace

· Civil War ABC's

· Questions for Expert Collaborators

Around forty examples of Voicethread organized by the purpose of the Voicethread. Shared by Suzie Vesper. More >>>

Ideas for how to develop lessons for VoiceThread

How did you think through the pedagogy that encourages collaboration and makes VoiceThread the “right” tool for your project?

Start with a goal in mind. Ask yourself WHY is VoiceThread the best tool for this lesson. Is it really encouraging collaboration and thoughtful responses? Are you trying to involve multiple classes on one project?

Use a storyboard or Inspiration for careful planning of your VoiceThread. Begin with a discussion of the big picture. How will your images, text, audio convey the message to the audience? Spend some time discussing this. Do you want to have an emotional impact, or is this about educating someone. How will our images/text represent the tone we are going for? Have the students first begin brainstorming with what they want to say during the presentation. Flush out all ideas BEFORE gathering images. This is a common mistake. Students want to find the photos first and then fit their message to the photos - it should be the other way around. Model digital citizenship by having students using images with Creative Commons licensing (FlickrStorm is a great search tool), draw and scan, or take photographs. A good site for free and open content can be found at OER. I have also had the students make slides in PowerPoint and then "save as" jpg and upload those (be careful though that they don't put too much text on the slide and use large fonts). I like to have the students do all their recordings in Audacitybefore they even begin assembling their project on Voicethread. We have issues with lots of background noise when recording in the classroom so I encourage students to come in during lunch/after school or at home to make their recordings. Audacity is FREE and easy to use and will allow the students to edit out mistakes, "um" or even add simple music introductions. Once all of the audio is recorded, the images are collected and avatars are made for each student - I let them begin assembling their VoiceThread. This process goes much smoother since we did all the work up front.

VoiceThread is great for debates. Multiple people can voice their opinions. Consider having one slide for pro and another for con.

I heard the story of a teacher who used Voicethread for creative storytelling in her one-computer classroom. The first students (they worked in pairs) started a chain story with a main character, setting and problem. The students drew a picture of the scene, scanned it and uploaded the to a class Voicethread account and recorded their portion of the story. When they were through, they tagged the next students in the class to continue on the story. It went on and on until everyone participated. This went on for several weeks and there was excitement each day when the pairs got to work on the class story and lots of whispering (because they were suppose to keep their part a secret). The pairs that went first were dying to find out what happened next and the pairs that started last had to wait their turn to find out the plot. The teacher occasionally checked on the story to make sure the plot made sense but the students did great. On the day of the big reveal of the story, the class ate popcorn and giggled at their parts of the story. It was a huge success. (I don't have URL - anyone know it?)

Wonderful ideas for using VoiceThread from Using Voicethread for Digital Conversations- http://digitallyspeaking.pbwiki.com/Voicethread
- Begin by carefully selecting a topic that will promote conversation and debate between students—and that can be conveyed through images currently available to you. Possible topics include:
  - What can you learn about the values of a country or a culture by studying images?
  - Is Global Warming having an impact on our world?
  - Has urbanization helped or harmed our community?
  - Where can evidence of math be found in our daily lives?
  - Is graffiti a form of artistic expression or simply vandalism?
  - Who are heroes?

Voicethread is great for visual literacy or reflective practices. I have had my graphic design students upload projects and talk through their thinking of WHY they created the project the way they did. The comments are reflective and authentic which encourage thoughtful responses by their classmates.

Plan a collaborative project with schools from another state. Its easier if one school hosts the VoiceThread and invites other schools to participate. Give specific guidelines of how you want the school to participate, make decisions on using images/avatars, provide samples comments, and give credit to all participating schools.

I was thinking about doing embedded video with the new version of Google Earth, it dawned on me that perhaps I could embed a Voice Thread project into a place mark. I quickly added a place mark and in the description pane, I pasted the embed code for both Voice Thread and Animoto projects. It worked beautifully! Try it yourself, it is remarkably simple to do. Below is a short tutorial video to show you the process of embedding Voice Thread into Google Earth. The audio get slightly choppy, probably due to GE running. excerpt from John Maklary http://learning20.blogspot.com/2007/10/earth-20.html

An example of using Voicethread for summative assessment in Art.