Using new technologies to enhance learning experiences

A few months back I wrote an article for Terry Freedman which was published in Computers in Classrooms online newsletter. Today the same article has been published on ictineducation, Terry Freedman’s site. The article refers to the use of Edmodo, Animoto, Audacity and VoiceThread in the classroom.

Thanks for that Terry

Our first VoiceThread

Today we used VoiceThread for the first time to create a few pages of recorded comments about our thoughts on using Myst in our Literacy lessons. The children responded very well and enjoyed the whole process although, naturally, some shied away from being recorded by webcam but offered an audio recording instead. But what I found about using VoiceThread was that it gave my pupils the opportunity to listen to their own voices, watch themselves on the IWB and then decide whether they thought their spoken response was good enough or needed to be corrected. Most of them took two or three attempts to record their responses as they were not entirely happy with their first tries. As second language learners this is a great way for children to practice a new language and have fun at the same time. Watch it here.

Our thoughts on using Myst in the classroom

Using Voice thread in the classroom

Voicethread is one of those tools that I have only just discovered and wish I had done so a few weeks back. In case you don’t know it’s

a place for creating and collaborating on digital stories and documentaries, practicing and documenting language skills, exploring geography and culture, solving math problems or simply finding and honing student voices.

I have used it with my class to document a school trip and I asked them to do it in Spanish, their mother language. The Voicethread I have started only contains two slides and 2 comments but the potential as a documentary tool is impressive. You can see for yourself here.