VoiceThreads: The Writing Process

I chose the first option for my digital story this week. I created a VoiceThread that talked about the Writing Process. It went through five different stages of the process and gave students an introduction to each. I think I might use this as a homework assignment for students to look at on a Monday night, after I have introduced the topic to them earlier that day. I would ask students to listen to the video and bring back questions that they have about the VT the next day. I actually really enjoyed creating this project. I first picked my topic and then wrote out a script of what I wanted to say ahead of time. That way, I was able to make the slides and transitions between the stages go smoothly. One thing that I disliked about the VT though was that you couldn’t type in additional words over the images (or at least I didn’t see how that was possible); I feel it would have been helpful to be able to superimpose some key vocabulary involved in the writing process simply for reinforcement. Other than that, I felt like this was an awesome tool to use. It’s definitely different from the kinds of learning tools used when I was in elementary school!

I feel like there are TONS of different ways teachers could use this technology in their own classrooms. They could use it as a supplement to a lesson that was discussed in class that day, as I decided to do. Or, they could even use it to display their own students’ work. One thing I thought might be interesting to do, with a unit of poetry, is to have students each write their own poem. Then they could draw a picture that they felt represented that poem. The pictures could then be scanned onto the computer and then each student could record their own poem and you could create a sort of class gallery of poems. This would be something you could show to parents and I feel students would work extra hard knowing that their work would be published for others to view. For older students, this could also be used as a forum to display their own projects, just as we had to do for this class. You could assign them a topic, require a minimum number of slides, have them create a script that would be approved by the teacher, and then have them record their own VT. This type of project could give students an idea of what it would be like to work in a field that deals with technology like this—it might also get them interested in a career working with animation or other kinds of digital technology.