Voice Thread has graciously volunteered to sponsor our Green 180 project this year.  So, when a friend in my PLN asked if I was willing to write a blog about Voice Thread, I jumped on it. Together we have come up with a very large list of ideas that you can use to incorporate Voice Thread into your classroom no matter what age you teach. 

1. ask kids how to make a pumpkin pie/cook a turkey/wrap a present for a holiday Voice Thread to share with parents.

2.  Kids make a Voice Thread for parents for back to school night to tell about their new class and the daily schedule.

3. Ask kids ?s about a topic as a pre-assessment and then again AFTER instruction to demo how much they learned.

4.  Create a Voice Thread about famous Americans (whichever ones your state requires in your grade level). Then other kids (or grades above) can use it for review when state testing comes ’round.

5.  Connect with another class in another part of the country/world and co-create a Voice Thread on the way outside looks for each season.

6.  Have kids take screen snapshots of their favorite web sites and share them through Voice Thread–putting the URL on each page then allows parents to access them at home, or other teachers to use.

7.  Kids define spelling words–or make sentences.

8.  Make a spoken menu for a foreign language or their home culture.

9.  How to video–step by step  directions for a hobby/area of expertise for older kids

10.  Make a visual tour of classroom/school/house/whatever

11.  Make different slides for familiar words and have kids share their own words for that (names for grandmothers, g’fathers, times of day, meals, whatever) to compare cultures.

12.  Make Voice Threads for military holidays and send the links to troops overseas.

13.  Do the typical take a picture of your class in front of a tree throughout the seasons and connect with classes around the world to each do the same and share in a common Voice Thread.

14. Do an author study where the kids show what they are learning though a growing Voice Thread–different books could be illustrated by the kids, or book covers could be the impetus for talk.

15. Have kids share the causes of conflict in important wars to make a timeline of causes/opponents/outcomes

16. Make an I Spy Voice Thread with primary source photos from American memory.

17. Create a picture memory book of a field trip.throughout the year/ special event

18.  Kids do their book report on Voice Thread

19. Attached is  a  link to “zoom-in” Inquiry method. .  http://www.primarysourcelearning.org/tps/step1/workshop/4/m_a/zooms/index.shtml  imagine that in Voice Thread!

20. How about optical illusions–kids take pictures of something familiar REALLY close up and others guess what it is. 

21. Have the scene from a story without the details in the picture. Read the story and have each student add in one element that they think may be in the picture. This would be great for The Hungry Caterpillar all the way up to High School Literature.

22. Use commom everyday pictures of scientific topics such as push or pull or the 6 simple machines and have the students tell what they are. 

23. Help students celebrate the birthday of one of their teachers by having them all add comments. Thanks for the inpiration for this DEN… and Happy Birthday Hall.

24. Let the teachers take pictures of a process and then have their classmates comment on the process and what they learned from the Voice Thread.

25. Have your students take their own picture with a classroom camera, download it to the computer, resize it and then upload it to their comment in Voice Thread.

26. Have your students scan and upload their holiday art to create a classroom Voice Thread that includes everyones art work. Have the students make one positive comment for every piece of art. Post it on the school website to show parents and the world.

27. Have students tell what comes next in the story with no visual cues. Each student will draw a picture and leave a comment about a story. the first person will start the story and each student after will tell what happened next, while drawing something related.

28. Use it for science experiments to show the changes in their project over time. For instance, the student can show the time-lapsed growth of plants fed with different liquid. Each picture will show a new version and the student can write in the height and plant food as the pictures change to get the point across.

29. Create a postcard project and have your students send postcards around the country or the world to other classes. Ask for the recipients to send back a card to your class. Scan in all of the postcards before you send them and scan in the responses as you receive them back.  Have the students comment on the postcards about things they learned about the opposing city and ask they other class to respond to your scanned in postcards. In the end you should have a very interesting compilation of thoughts.

30. Have the students create a classroom wishlist to show what your kids would like to have in their classroom. You can do it for parents, or just for a fun project to see the kinds of things that motivate them.

31. Have the students create a story, each one getting a new page to draw their part of the story.

32. Create a recipe Voice Thread. Share with others how you make something. 

 32. Show parts of the water cycle and have the students name and describe what is happeneing.

33. If you want endless possibilities, consider importing videos from Discovery Streaming and then have the kids comment on them. Remember that the videos are protected and you cannot post this for others outside the class to view. But imagine the possibilities… letting your students view the different 1-2 minute clips within a full video and commenting for each one. You could definitely get an idea of your students understanding of a subject… not to mention, the videos are endless. Now THAT is a good idea!

34. Use it in conjunction with Animoto by uploading short Animoto clips onto the different pages. You can use generic pictures of farm animals for the younger kids and see how many the kids can recall in each video. Animoto also offers accounts to teachers which makes it fun and enticing.

35. Take utube videos and convert them to something you can use at school using zamzar. Then upload the videos into VoiceThread. A great example of a video you can upload would be one by Mathmaticious. Have the kids watch it and see what important facts they can regurgitate from the rap song.

36. If you do daily activities like morning video announcements, include short segments like the weather from the entire week. In other words, you would upload 5 videos to voicethread. Have the kids compare and contrast the days to see what worked and what didn’t so that you can improve upon your output.

37. Use it to introduce ideas in professional development. Survey teachers to see what interests them more.

38. Have students introduce their family members and encourage their clsasmates find similarities and differences between their families.

39. Take kids on a virtual field trip. Incorporate other tools like Google Earth and Camtasia or the free version (of Camtasia) at Jing Project and then dump the videos into VoiceThread.

40. Use it for a multi-step math problem that could be done in a myriad of ways so that students can reply by how they would do it.

Well, I could definitely keep keep going, but I guess we’ve all got to sleep. I hope this will inspire you to use Voice Thread in your classroom several times this year. I also hope you will take a moment to share it with your teacher friends. It is an amazing product and they even have Educational VoiceThread so that your school district has no reason to block it within the school walls. For that matter, they even tell you the details you need to give to your IT department to get the website opened. It is truely worth your time! Plus, the company will give you a teacher account worth $50 for free. 

If you don’t find the how-to video on the site to be as helpful as you would like, I came across this great how-to document by Miguel Guhlin who really spent a lot of time and effort putting it together. I certainly can’t write this without giving him Kudos for his heard work and kudos to Paula as well with her input to this list. Please feel free to leave a comment about how you used this in your classroom and help us compile a list of at least 50 ways for others to use it in theirs.