Thursday, March 18, 2010

Voicethread with Us - Leprechaun Visits the Mall-ards!


We think the children will remember this St. Patty's Day for many years. They had so much fun bringing in their traps, telling us how they made them, setting them up, and hoping to be the one who caught the leprechaun. The biggest surprise came when they returned from lunch and saw all the mess that the little green man made while trying to take everyone's gold. Chairs were tossed, traps were closed, and gold was taken. Besides green footprints left on the counters, green glitter in toilet, and a note on the board, he did leave a cookie for each child.

We were very lucky to have Mrs. Holtsman come and photograph the events for all to see and today she came in to teach us about the fun in digital story telling. Today we are adding a special feature and would like for you to participate. It is called Voicethread.

Digital storytelling is using digital tools (online) to tell stories. The benefit to doing it online is that you have a much larger audience for your story and you can get immediate feedback and additions to your story. The website Voicethread allows you to upload photos and create a digital story from them. We uploaded the photos from our St.Patrick's Day activities yesterday. We would love for you to take a moment to add a comment with your child!

Here's how you do it. Go to the website for Voicethread. Click sign in or register for an account. When the login comes up, click register. Register for your free account. You may have to then go to your email account to verify this account you created. Now, go back to the blog to view the voicethread and click the bottom left hand button that says sign in. Once you are signed in, you go to the photo where you would like to leave a comment and click the comment button under the photo. You press "record" and it will allow you to record what your child would like to say for that photo. Some examples may be: what they liked in the photo, what they remembered about what happened...etc. Your computer microphone will record his/her voice. If you want to push the webcam button it can even record a video comment. If you have trouble with the sound, you can push the telephone button to get a phone call to record your comment.

Having all of the boys and girls share their thoughts and memories will complete our digital story. We can't wait to hear what the children and you have to say!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is such a great idea! I love it! Kyle is already asleep tonight, but we will be on voicethread right afterschool tomorrow! Thanks for offering such creativity and great learning tools! - Claire Ladd

Anonymous said...

The pictures are amazing! Bennett shared many stories from the day!

The Griffin Family

Susan said...

I think it's great that you are using VoiceThread! Our district is so "tight" about what we can/can't post, I'm almost afraid to try putting VoiceThread up. I think I could do it as long as I didn't put photos of the children's faces on it.
Your blog is inspirational.

Ms. Symons said...

Lauren has so much fun creating her trap. It was a great project! I understand why she loves coming to school everyday. The pictures looked like the kids had a blast!!!

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