This is a quick post to share some of the ways I have been using Voicethread lately to enhance my teaching and the students learning (because that is exactly what matters when it comes to using ICT in the classroom…lets not get carried away by the tools but focus on using them effectively).

1) My class, E3, has begun a new relationship with a school in Nelson, Room 8 from Ranzau School. We have been collaborating together on our speeches. Below is one of my students who was going into the semi finals so we used Voicethread so that our buddy class (and others) could provide some positive support and critique her speech to help her better prepare her for the semi finals.

Click on the picutre below to be taken to the Voicethread. (I had some trouble embedding it.)

2) We have recently finished an inquiry into “How Great is Our God?” with the focus being on Space. Here is a link to a Voicethread where Bono’s Thinking Hats were used to reflect on the inquiry.

3) At the end of last Term I set up a Voicethread so that students could record collectively their thoughts on the question “What would school look like in 100 years?” Tony Ryan’s ‘Prediction’ Thinkers Key was used to provoke this thought.

4) I used Voicethread at the beginning of this year to help teach internet safety to my Year 6 (Grade 5) students. It has proven a good source to go back to when we need to remember how to be safe on the net.

5) Last year I was teaching a group of Year 2 students about “How Things Move”. During this time we used Voicethread to reflect on and celebrate what we had learnt during this topic.

Please share other ways you have used Voicethread to enhance teaching or learning in your class.

The other night our ICT Cluster was offered the chance to listen to a internet safety talk presented by NetSafe. It was excellent.

The internet safety message reminded me again of the harmful potential that the internet provides. This was also hit home to Rocky, my Cluster ICT Facilitator, who wrote a post entitled: “The Problem Is Not The Technology, It Is How It Is Used”.

Something worth watching and using especially if you are a Teacher, Parent or Principal is this video that was shared during the evening.

Following this and after further discussions with my Principal we have written up some blogging guidelines for our school:

1. General safety rules must be agreed on by the whole class.

a. Only use our FIRST name when writing.
b. Only use SENSIBLE and KIND words.
c. Do not write any of our DETAILS – this includes phone number, address and personal email address.
d. Be careful when putting PHOTOS on (we have permission slips signed by parents). Photos must not have any part of a student’s name at the bottom of it. Where possible group photos are preferred over individual photos.
e. Ask PERMISSION when putting on other people’s photos – tell them what you are going to do with the photos.
f. Only display nice photos of other people (we don’t want people to be embarrassed) .
g. Be RESPONSIBLE when using and writing on our blog.

(The inspiration for these rules came from Rachel Boyd's class blog)

2. Remove the Navbar by editing the html.

3. Edit html on widgets/slideshows/etc where possible so advertising is removed. (These advertising links lead students often to inappropriate sites.)
Note: It is easier to use Photostory or Moviemaker to create slideshows/videos and then upload this to blogger using the “video upload” button.

4. Links to other blogs or websites must be previewed before linking to the class blog. (Pages with non educational links should not be included e.g. games, advertising, social networks).

5. Comment moderation must be turned on (this will enable all comments to be sent to a designated email box to be moderated before they are published on the blog).

6. Posts must be saved by students in draft form to be viewed by the teacher before publishing.

7. Show http://www.hectorsworld.com/ to students and have this link on your blog so videos on internet safety can be viewed and discussed.

As part of my classes ICT program we created a Voicethread to discuss and highlight the need to follow the above simple safety rules while on the internet:

The internet is a tool and just like a hammer it can inflict pain or build a magnificent house. It is our responsibility as educators to make sure we have done our best to teach internet safety to our students AND their families.

We must make sure our blog is safe; is your blog’s seatbelt done up?