WAP 2 - Students as Tutorial Designers: VoiceThread

Looking at technology available to help students create tutorials to teach each other turned out to be a very timely investigation that I could immediately put to use.

We had just done an activity in the classroom where we went on a “Shape Scavenger Hunt.” We reviewed what we knew about shapes, and then I paired the children (strategically, of course) and sent them off to find real life examples of their assigned shapes in the classroom. Each team was to put items they found made of their shape into a paper bag and then we would regroup and each team could share their findings with the class. The results were interesting…

Some of my teams did exactly what I asked and were very excited to share their bags. But some of the teams just took the opportunity to run around the room and scoop large quantities of items (think Legos, plastic food, and pattern blocks) willy-nilly into their bag, totally missing the point. How could I reframe the activity to engage everyone?

Thinking on what we have been learning about autonomy, mastery and purpose, I realized that perhaps the purpose of this activity may have not been compelling enough for some of my students. If they perceived that the purpose of the activity was merely to put stuff in a bag to make the teacher happy, I can see why misbehaving was a more exciting choice. But if the purpose of the activity was to ultimately make a tutorial and be the expert and teach other children what they know about shapes, we might have had a different outcome.

Enter VoiceThread.   Of the applications we looked at in class, I thought that VoiceThread might provide a way to achieve that goal. I asked one of the students who embraced the shape hunt activity if she would be willing to tell what she knew about ovals so we could make a lesson for the class. Of course she was!

I took a picture of ovals found in the classroom, uploaded it to the application and prepared her to narrate. To format her tutorial, I asked her to introduce herself and her shape, and then describe her shape, and tell what examples she found in the classroom. We recorded her voice and I outlined the shapes she found (using the color of her choice). Interestingly, when she listed the ovals found in the classroom, she only said the names of the four items she had actually found herself and put in the bag.  She did not name the ones I added later to flesh out the picture. Talk about ownership!

VoiceThread was very straightforward to use, and I can easily add slides and comments to this presentation to cover more shapes. I don’t think my students would be able to create content yet on their own, but they can certainly do the prep work and have me push the buttons to record their learning.

For this project I used only the audio comments, since I was publishing to a blog and was worried about confidentiality.  For classroom-only use, I might try using the video comments, but expect the kids would then be more interested in looking at the speaker rather than the picture being discussed, so for this project, video would probably be a big distraction. The only annoying thing so far is that the box that introduces the current comment blocks the picture for while before it fades.  Next time I'll lead into the commentary with some dead air to give it time to disappear.

I am excited to show this tutorial to the class and have the rest of the children add to it.

[Transcript: Hello. My name is Nessa. I’m going to tell you about ovals. It has a big bump and a line. I found them at school. I found a leaf, scissors, a fish and a grape.]