Finding Our Voice(Thread)

An image from a VoiceThread I put together this summer after visiting the site of Ben Franklin's Printshop in Philadelphia.

Survive.

It’s a good goal for all of us. I mean, it’s pretty obvious that to accomplish anything in life we’ve got to survive just to be able to start the next day…right? As a teacher, my first several years in the classroom could be described as survival years…just getting through each day so we could try it all over again. There were some amazing and wonderful parts to the experience, certainly, but it was not the multidimensional, compelling, engaged reality I’d hoped for.

Thrive.

Last year, through a crazy/wonderful sequence of events, I met and began collaborating with a couple of talented and inspiring teachers in Long Island, New York. Lisa Parisi and Christine Southard were doing things in their classroom with their students that I’d barely even conceived as possible. Their students were effectively and creatively using technology tools I’d dabbled with but never wielded with skill. The South Paris Collaborative classroom was not just surviving, it was thriving! I knew from the beginning that, no matter how intimidated I felt as I looked at what they were doing, I wanted to be part of it. Gladly, Mrs. Parisi and Mrs. Southard were generous enough to include me and help cultivate greater confidence in using collaborative tools in the DreamExtreme classroom.

VoiceThread.

One of the tools the South Paris Collaborative introduced me to last year was VoiceThread. It’s an innovative web-based tool that allows users to collaboratively upload audio, document, and image content and attach comments and voice annotations. We used a VoiceThread in a poetry unit with South Paris, allowing students from across the country to dialog, reflect, and make predictions and connections to the poems we worked with. The non-linear depth that a tool like VoiceThread allows is profoundly beyond more traditional classroom tools.

A major goal of mine for this year’s class is to more regularly, confidently, and meaningfully integrate VoiceThread into our learning journey. Since VoiceThread is a web-based tool, students can access it from any of our networked computers. Since they offer a free, basic membership, we are able to have a decent level of access to VoiceThread tools and options. There is a far more power-packed level of VoiceThread membership, however, which allows each student to have an individual account. Imagine the heightened level of collaboration possible if each student could more freely contribute to project VoiceThreads. I’m especially excited about the classroom subscription idea because we have a chance of winning one for free, courtesy of VoiceThread and Lee Kolbert’s blog.

Collaboration with other classes is taking a central position in our DreamExtreme classroom. We’re going to spend a great part of this school year as part of a Library of Congress-centered inquiry project using primary source documents. Students will be working in groups to identify, research, and report on document-based content that connects with our learning goals and the collaborative partnerships we’re developing across the country. VoiceThread will play a significant role in giving students a forum for sharing/publishing their work and responding to what other groups have done. If we are the recipients of the give-away, it will be an even more enriching tool for students to use.

Tools like VoiceThread and partners like the South Paris Collaborative move us past mere survival to the far more thrilling reality of thriving. Whether we win this give-away or not, I’m excited about the learning possibilities on our horizon.

LATE-BREAKING NEWS: Moments ago, I saw a Twitter update from Lee Kolbert (@TeachaKidd) stating that the winner in the VoiceThread class subscription give-away had been selected. With measures or excitement and nerves both in play, I clicked on the link and discovered that the winner is…US!

Major thanks to Ms. Kolbert and VoiceThread for adding an exciting new level of collaborative communication for this DreamExtreme school year!