CEdO530 Week 2

This week of Digital Storytelling introduced us to VoiceThread , which is an online tool to facilitate commentary on presentations, including the ability to record voice commentary that could be used to narrate the information on the slides. I am interested in getting a lot of practice with this tool, as I see it having a lot of potential for the work I do with new staff members. Much of the beginning training process is covering the basics: About the company, roles and responsibilities, HR information, etc. The ability to create an introductory module to the training process in order to share this information through something like VoiceThread could not only improve the consistency of the message people are receiving, but would also cut down on the time I am taken out of daily work tasks to deliver this as people are hired throughout the year. Using VoiceThread would not eliminate the need for me or one of the supervisors to meet with new employees for orientation, as I believe that face time is important to making new hires feel welcome and to get them off to a good start; but consistency can be a challenge, and can be impacted by multiple factors (tight schedules, environment, person delivering the training, etc.)...a tool like this would serve well to eliminate the variables and ensure all receive the same message.

If I were teaching in a classroom, I could see using VoiceThread as a way to share samples of student work with families and a vehicle for students to receive feedback from a broader audience. This would certainly take some careful monitoring, and would depend on school/district policies about the use of this type of technology, but it has great potential. Students could also use a tool like VoiceThread to present culminating projects for their coursework: they could even start in a more familiar application such as Power Point and then upload and use VoiceThread to add the finishing touches.

Once again, I am looking forward to learning more about this new tool and I can't wait to try it out as I continue to update and improve training materials and techniques at work!