Wednesday, August 3, 2011

VoiceThread

Post # 8
~ Group conversations are collected and shared in one place from anywhere in the world.
~ No software to install.
~ is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos
~ allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways
- using voice (with a mic or telephone)
-  text
-  audio file
-  video (via a webcam)
- share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to
record comments too
Users can doodle while commenting, use multiple identities, and pick which comments are shown through moderation. VoiceThreads can even be embedded to show and receive comments on other websites and exported to MP3 players or DVDs to play as archival movies. https://voicethread.com/about/features/

Subscription Fees for different levels of use:
Single or Class Subscription:
~ allows you to give your Students their own account within a secure collaborative network, Ed.VoiceThread
$60.00/year or $10.00/month
            Subscription includes:
* 100 Student accounts (add more at any time for $1 each)
* Create Student usernames (email address not required)
* Automatically be made a co-editor of Student work
* Admin tool to manage Student account and create Classes
* Custom web address to easily share public VoiceThreads
A school subscription is based on the educator/student enrolment number for your school.  When I tried a few calculations with numbers it always works out to $1.00/person (student or educator).  There is no option of a monthly rate.  The options are similar for the school as an individual class.  https://voicethread.com/products/k12/school/
The third educational offer is for a school district licence.  You need to contact VoiceThread in order to receive a cost quote.  The district licence does have a few options that are different from the Single/Class and School subscriptions.  https://voicethread.com/products/k12/district/

 VoiceThread offers a unique way to share information.  I think this would work well with classrooms that are more technologically inclined, at least their teachers should be.  I don’t find it to be as easy to use as some of the other options I’ve discovered, but I think it is worth checking out.  I like the single class option of year or monthly rate.  If anyone has used this site before please let me know.  Thanks!
This is a cool info video:  http://voicethread.com/products/k12/#

1 comment:

Richard Schwier said...

What a coincidence, Maureen! I am planning to use Voicethread with the etad 802 group next week to manage our discussion. You can get a sneak preview of the thread here.

I really like voicethread for a lot of reasons, and I've used it a dozen times or so. It is easy, intuitive, and it supports storytelling -- a big favourite of mine. I hope it works out for you as well as it has for me.

By the way, you can get a free account (which has some limitations, but not anything I can't live with). Let's see how it goes over next week!