- All right.
Well, it is 11:30, and I'm sure there's going
to be more people who join us.
But I just wanted to take a moment
to say welcome and thank you.
I am Janet Mitchell-Lambert, and we have Kolleen Kalt
here with us from English.
And we didn't practice this presentation ahead of time.
We're going to just go back and forth.
But we both have used VoiceThread.
And the purpose of this is to share what VoiceThread is,
and give you some examples and answer questions about it.
And yeah.
So Kolleen, please feel free to interrupt.
And I want to invite everybody else to feel free to interrupt.
This particular slide show will be available.
I will put it on our remote teaching web site
under Course Tools, so you'll have an opportunity
to see it later.
I'm not going to read every slide,
but I did want to include enough information on it.
So we shall get started here.
All right.
And just so you know, in case you didn't, every time you
share something on Zoom, there is a lag time.
So-- all right.
So in terms of the overview, this
is just the overview that is provided in the remote teaching
resources.
It's basically an interactive slide show.
And what is lovely about it is that you can create it,
and you can use it right away.
You don't have to wait for things to download.
And you can redo slides, which I have done many, many times,
using audio or video.
You can close caption the slides,
and we'll be talking to you about that.
But I really like this because it
is good for mini lectures, as well
as interactive participation from students.
Did you want to add anything on top of that, Kolleen?
- Just about the cost.
So up until this point, I had been
using the free membership, which is good,
but it has some limitations.
You could only do a certain number of voice threads,
you know, et cetera.
And then a couple of days ago, I bit the bullet.
I'm like, I'm just going to pay the $99 for the year.
And then the next day they said it's free for educators.
So that's OK.
It's only free for a limited time.
So I urge you to take advantage of that.
- And I'm going to ask everybody if can, if you could mute
yourself that would be lovely.
If you find your little picture, you can hit mute,
and then you speak.
You can unmute yourself, if that's OK with you.
That way we can make sure that we're hearing everybody.
And Kolleen is right.
Basically, it is free, and not just VoiceThread,
but Pronto and all these other tools,
they are free for the next few months,
because they're really hoping to capture you as a client.
And I've been paying for VoiceThread
for a number of years.
And I do not pay for everything, but I definitely pay for this.
All right.
[INAUDIBLE] here.
My arrows are not working when I have you on visit.
- My bottom-- my right side of my wrist-- like,
I couldn't-- first, I couldn't--
- If I could ask everybody if you're able to mute yourselves,
that would be lovely.
- [INAUDIBLE].
And like, every time I smiled, like my right side
wouldn't move.
- Hold on one moment.
Sorry.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- I'm going to stop sharing for a moment,
because I'm not even able to escape.
All right.
I am going to--
- OK.
So just imagine if it was your house after--
- I'm going to mute anyone who is not muted.
All right.
So fantastic.
And now I'm going to share my screen again.
Excuse me.
Well, let's try this again.
Let's see.
OK.
Here we go.
All right.
So I am going to-- and you're welcome to unmute
yourselves as needed if you have questions as we move through.
I am going to--
and I hope I did not mute you, Kolleen.
- No.
I don't think-- awesome.
- Awesome OK.
So I wanted to take you directly to VoiceThread here and show
you a few things with it.
And Kolleen will also be showing some things here.
I always want to do the Jeopardy theme
song as I'm waiting for new screens to open up here,
because it always takes a little time here.
All right.
So what I'm going to show you here
is I have a sample VoiceThread here.
And I am just going to go through it sort of quickly,
just to showcase to you that it is--
this slide show, I'm going to make this small here.
So I have a slide show here.
I can click Open on a comment that I have made.
- Welcome to our How to Interpret Literature.
- And I've just paused it right here.
And you can see that there are live captions here.
- Janet, I'm still seeing your Pronto screenshot.
I don't know if--
- You are still-- that is odd.
OK.
I'm going to try this again.
I'm going to stop share.
Thank you for sharing that, Kolleen.
I don't know why, because I'm am directly on VoiceThread.
Let's see.
Are we-- are we there?
- Yeah
- Thank you so much.
OK, so let's try this again.
So this is a sample VoiceThread.
And you see my little face here.
This is my avatar.
And it is a slideshow.
And I'm going to quickly just move through a couple of slides
that show you different slides that I've included, including
a purpose and task, and some guidelines,
and then some questions here about the particular topic
that I've included.
I wanted to show you that to comment on any slide
that you've created, you can hit the plus sign here.
And I'm hovering over it.
And you can add a comment.
So if I want to make a comment, I
can make a text comment, an audio comment.
I can use a video comment here.
I tend to use audio comments, but you can
do video or audio, et cetera.
In talking about the captioning here,
while you're waiting for captioning-- let's
say you want to make a VoiceThread,
and you just want to do it really quickly.
You can also make a text comment.
And here I'm going to just put Sample Text.
And I can save it here.
The closed caption comments--
- Welcome to our How to Interpret--
- I'm going to pause it right here.
The captions are here.
If you do not have a caption on your slide,
and you click on here, there is a place
where you can make the request.
You choose the Language, you choose Send, and you hit OK.
What's lovely is that you can also edit your captions.
So for example, it didn't start with a W,
or maybe there's a misspelling of sorts,
or maybe the word is completely wrong,
you can save the captions here.
And I show you this because once you have everything captioned,
you are ready to go.
So I wanted to show you that for just a moment,
just to let you know that this is a slideshow.
So you see several different slides.
They can be screenshots.
They can be videos.
And I will share that what I tend to do
is create a PowerPoint or a Google slideshow
that I download.
And then I save as a PowerPoint, and I upload it
to VoiceThread, which I will show you in a minute.
And then I make comments on every single slide.
Now, there's a sample that I'm going to show you
that has only two slides.
You can have multiple slides.
You can have a single slide if you want.
So you can have as few or as many
slides as you want about any sort of content that you want.
I wanted to show this to you.
I want to show you that once I've created VoiceThreads--
and you're going to see several showing here in a minute.
I want to show you some options for sending, for using,
et cetera.
So I just showed you-- just very quickly.
I'm not even talking about content here.
I showed you this sample VoiceThread.
You can edit it.
You can share it.
You can make a copy.
And I am going to go to Edit, so that you can see the editing.
And later on, this is going to be saved as a video.
You can come back and take a look as needed.
As you see right here, there are all these slides.
These were originally PowerPoint slides that I included here.
I can actually physically edit individual slides.
I can even edit the title.
I can add media, where I can go to my computer--
media sources, audio recordings, webcam or webcam videos.
I have options here, which are playback settings, which
I'm going to show you in a minute-- copy
this VoiceThread or delete.
I will share with you that when I make a VoiceThread,
the title is always template.
I have a friend who calls hers master.
And I keep them so that when I want to use them again
without student comments, I can just make a copy of it,
and I can put the semester and the class and the year,
so that I can use it again.
I want to show you playback settings.
So these are settings that you can choose to use.
I have enabled threaded commenting, which
I will show you in a moment.
And Kolleen may be able to show you as well.
There's all these different choices.
I'm going to click on Allow Others to Make a Copy.
And if you join VoiceThread, you can make a copy of mine just
to use and play around with.
And you can save it as your default
if you want, and hit Save.
If I would like to share it with somebody, I can get a link.
I hit View and Comment.
Or if it's a lecture VoiceThread,
I would just hit View.
I copy this, and I take it directly to Canvas,
and open up Canvas and hit the plus URL,
and put it in the URL.
And I put it there so that students have access
to the VoiceThread.
I know I'm going very quickly, and I can go back.
But I just wanted to show you some of the different ways
of quickly using VoiceThread.
And I also have a sample video for you
to take a look at later on.
Once I have my slides up--
- Add-- let me add something, Janet, really quickly.
You can also embed--
you can embed it on Canvas.
That's how I put them in my Canvas.
Rather than as a link, I embed it onto a Canvas page
or onto a Canvas assignment.
So it's not a full integration like some of the tools,
but just to take out that one extra step of having
my students go to an external URL,
you can embed it on Canvas as well,
which is a really nice feature.
- Thank you.
Yes.
Thank you for sharing that.
And yes it is, especially if you want
to put it within the page of the assignment itself,
so that students aren't hunting around for it.
Thank you.
Once the slide show is up, you can then go to Comment.
And that's going to bring you right back
to the very front slide, just like I showed you before,
or the slide that we were on.
And so I have this slide here.
You can hit the Comment and have it go let's just get it
on pause, which I'm doing.
And what's great is you can respond here
for an initial response.
Or you can respond to somebody specifically,
which is called the threading, by hitting the arrow.
And I'm going to create a little text here that says, thanks.
I'm going to save it.
And you see here that it is its own special thread.
And that is something that I show students
at the very beginning when we use this,
so that they understand how to respond specifically
to students.
What I like about these comments and things
is that there is an option to edit,
and there is always an option to delete.
I'm going to show you one more just quick--
To Slide.
When I'm done with my actual handy dandy VoiceThread,
I'm going to go home.
And I have a sample ready for you right here.
I have a short simple VoiceThread,
and the VoiceThread that-- the VoiceThreads that you've used
most recently show at the top.
But you can also go back and search.
And one of the things that I did when I actually did
the closed captioning that Kolleen had shown me last year,
is I went back and I chose Template.
And I chose to close caption all those slides.
So I'm going to open up this one right now.
And I believe that I have not requested
to close caption the first slide, but maybe I did.
I'm going to look here.
I'm going to go to Closed Caption.
Yes, I did make the request.
I was hoping I did not yet.
But I'm sorry.
Up here is where you choose the language.
And then over here would be where you click Order,
and then you hit OK.
And once the captions come onto your VoiceThread,
they send you an email for every single slide.
So that's helpful.
This particular VoiceThread, I have my verbal comments here.
I just had two slides.
This was a practice VoiceThread that I
wanted them to share about what they
would like to learn about in terms of this English class.
It was just very simple.
I have one here.
Here's where I'm going to order here.
I'm going to just show that to you.
Yay.
I just had it out of order.
Nope.
It's not.
OK.
And you can also upload.
And this slide just asks what I know-- so what I know,
what I want to learn.
You can take screenshots, which if you're
doing any sort of math class, engineering class, anything
else, you can take screenshots.
You can include videos, et cetera.
And Kolleen, would you like to add anything before you share
your own VoiceThread slides?
- No.
I don't think so.
- OK.
All right.
So Kolleen, I'm going to stop share.
And if you're able to share your own screen,
that would be great.
We did not work that out ahead of time.
You might be able to, you may not.
But I'm going to ask you to try and share your screen.
If not, I'll help out.
Awesome.
- You're seeing my screen?
- Yes.
- OK.
Cool.
OK.
So I added a couple of sample VoiceThreads here as well.
One that I've used previously with students that has
the student responses on it.
And then one that I just created earlier this week.
And so this one is actually a copy, so it's available to you
guys.
If you want to play around on it, you can.
So let me open this one up.
And then I'll show you how it looks when it's
embedded in Canvas as well.
So this is-- let me move myself out of the way.
So this is-- typically, I would have done this
as a lecture in the class.
And then we would have a discussion afterwards.
It's a literature class.
So instead, I have it all in one PowerPoint.
As Janet said, I made it as a PowerPoint,
and then I uploaded it to VoiceThread.
And I did narrations for most of the lecture slides.
- Hi everyone.
So I am going to go over our literature of the American
South.
- So I just requested the closed captions.
So awesome.
Yeah.
Or maybe I didn't request closed captions for this one.
So if you need to request, you just
select the Language, and then Order.
And then it should be ready in about four days.
- Thank you, Kolleen.
I was-- I tried to do that myself [INAUDIBLE]..
- So I just go through and I comment.
I did a little video for each of my slides.
And some of them didn't need narrations.
Let's see.
And then-- move forward.
So then I have the discussion questions
that I want the students to do.
So there's 30-something students in the class.
So I broke them into three groups.
So each of them will answer one question.
And then they'll reply to the other two questions.
So I just wrote the names of the students here
that will be doing the original responses, and then
the replies.
So it's a fairly close simulation
to what we would have done in class, starting
with my lecture, and then breaking into groups
and having them talk about some ideas from the lecture
and relating it to the reading.
So that's one.
Let me see.
Oh, OK.
Here's my Canvas page, if you can see that.
So I have the instructions for how to get onto VoiceThread
and what the actual assignment is, some details about how
long their responses should be.
Because sometimes if you don't tell them, they just say,
I agree.
Sounds good.
I'm like, no.
That's not a response.
So some responses that show them--
or directions of how to do the responses.
And then here's the embedded VoiceThread.
And as I told Micky in the Chat, you
get the iframe code on the share screen.
And then some troubleshooting.
So this is the one that's actually live.
And one of my students has Chat on, so you can see--
- Hi everyone.
Happy quarantine.
So question number one--
- So you can see that she's online
and responding to the discussion question, which is pretty cool.
Any questions about that?
- And you can go ahead and unmute yourselves if you do.
I'm going to check the Chat, too.
Can you-- one of the questions is,
can you export saved VoiceThread as a regular video?
And can you embed a window with a video of the presenter?
I don't think so.
Do you know, Kolleen?
- No.
I don't know.
I've never attempted that.
- OK.
How to embed?
Is there an embed code?
Can you say that one more time?
- Yes, I can.
Let me get into VoiceThread.
So if I'm in my VoiceThread, and I go to Share--
get out of the Chat.
Sorry.
If I go into VoiceThread, and I go to Share, Basic, Embed.
And then I get the iframe code there.
So I can just embed that in my Canvas.
- Right.
So you see that up there, there's the link and the embed,
whichever one you choose to use.
Yeah.
Thank you for that.
And Kolleen's instructions are connected to this slideshow,
so if you are worried about getting her instructions.
Those are great.
I want to make sure I give those to my students, too.
They are there, and you will have access to them.
- It's basically-- I just basically copied what I put
on Canvas onto a Google Doc, so you you're free to use that
as well.
So that was-- this is more like of a lecture discussion.
I'll quickly show you.
I also-- this is from a couple of semesters
ago in an online class.
This is pre-Corona craziness.
I just used this as a mid-semester check-in
with my students.
So just really simple.
I ask them, how's it going?
What's working for you?
What's not, a couple of questions.
But it was nice, because they got
to come online and chat with one another.
- Hi, everybody.
It's Delia.
And so--
- This was a video.
It's not-- sometimes it's a little slow to load.
Let's see.
Yeah.
There she is.
- Hi, everybody.
It's Delia.
And so far in this class, what's really working--
- So it's just-- it's nice to be able to see the students,
and for them to see one another.
So it doesn't have to be as-- if you're doing check-ins online,
as you're working remotely with your students,
if you're doing check-ins, or you just want them to still
feel a little bit connected to one another,
you can just make a really simple how's it going slide.
And they can respond.
So it's pretty intuitive.
I haven't had many students have issues navigating it.
So, so far, so good.
- And it is free for them, but they
do have to create a VoiceThread account.
And so that is--
it's easy to use.
I mean, if you just say, it's free.
Just download the-- or create an account,
they're able to do it, even if you didn't save it
with that VoiceThread.com.
But that's where it is.
All right.
So getting back to our slide show.
Thank you, Kolleen.
That was great.
Fantastic.
Is everybody seeing the actual screen?
I am worried that you're not.
I'm sorry.
There we go.
I'm going to try this again.
And Kolleen, did you see something new in the Chat?
All right.
OK.
So I wanted to share the benefits of VoiceThread,
because there are so many.
And I was in a session this morning
just right before this one about being equity-minded,
with Dr. Frank Harris and Luke Wood.
And one of the things that they mentioned
about being equitable to students, particularly students
of color who may not have the same technology that we do,
is that we really should be flexible and give students
asynchronous alternatives.
And VoiceThread allows for that.
In fact, it's obviously completely asynchronous.
And it gives them time to work on their responses
when they have time.
We don't know what's going on with them in terms of work.
We don't know what's going on with them
in terms of preparing for their own children,
their spouses, maybe elderly family members.
And so giving them this asynchronous alternative
and something that they could do on their phone
is really important.
Students need to be taught how to communicate
in mixed communicative modes.
This does this.
It's multimodal.
So you're seeing, your hearing.
And again, you can utilize videos.
You can link YouTube videos and have
students look at a short piece of video, and then comment.
Obviously, we are all interacting
beyond the classroom.
The interaction is central to worthwhile asynchronous
communication.
And even in the short little clips that Kolleen showed,
what was lovely about them is you could see how personable
they were, how much-- you know, you
were able to see their personality,
in just a really short little couple of seconds.
And so having that video option is really positive.
Learning retention increases.
Again, it's equitable and empowering to invite
students to join.
And it allows students to be creative.
And they're really easy to create and use.
So you can use the longer ones.
I show-- both Kolleen and I gave you samples
that were both short and long.
You can literally create a VoiceThread in five minutes.
And again, if you are choosing--
let's say you want to use it today.
OK?
You can opt to just type your response, so
that you have both a oral and a written response
until those captions can be added.
Kolleen, are there any comments or questions in the Chat area?
I'm seeing it flash, so--
- They're just asking where things will be available.
So I'm just-- we're going to post everything
on the remote teaching Canvas page.
- Yes.
And it will be under, I believe it's page two, where
you see VoiceThread.
I'm going to put that in right after.
I am having trouble at every--
sorry.
OK.
Sorry.
My arrows are not working with this particular Zoom session.
I don't know why.
All right.
So going into other logistics--
and, Kolleen, I'm going to go back and forth with you,
because we probably all do things differently
in terms of using VoiceThread.
In terms of grading, what I have done with VoiceThread,
is I have students--
I tell them how many slides they should comment on
and how many students they should respond to.
And I'm going to be using Kolleen's
wonderful instructions about what
a good response looks like.
And you can decide what that is for you in your area.
Then I have students come back to Canvas,
and I have them in a very quick little text
box note the date that they responded,
and who they responded to, as well
as a couple of key takeaways or ideas
that they learned from participating
in the VoiceThread.
What do you do, Kolleen?
- I just go on VoiceThread-- it's a little annoying that
it's not integrated with Canvas in that way.
So I just do go on with my roster kind of next to me.
And I play through.
And you can speed up the play, which is nice
when there's a lot of posts.
So they sound like chipmunks, but you get through it faster.
And I just kind of check off, like, reply,
response, reply, response.
I just grade it like a discussion in that way.
- OK.
All right.
Yeah.
So there are a couple of different ways to handle it.
I find that students--
with me making them go back, it is an extra step,
so that's a con.
But a pro of doing it that way is that they reflect.
And basically, I'm doing it on the honor
system in that particular way.
But every once in a while I double-check.
I'm like, wait a minute.
Did I see so-and-so?
And yeah, usually I do.
So they tend to be very honest about this.
I do-- a rule of thumb about commenting back
to students in a VoiceThread, is that-- and I heard this
at a conference recently, is that if you're commenting back
to approximately 25% of your students--
so if you have a class of 30, that's 5.
Excuse me-- not 25%, 20%--
about 5 students out of 30, that's enough.
And as long as you're trying to vary it
just like you would in a discussion forum,
students do feel like they've been heard.
Do you comment back to students on VoiceThread, Kolleen?
- It depends on the assignment.
On the literature one that I showed you
where there was three main questions,
I'll probably do a summative comment at the end.
Once everybody has responded, I'll
probably do a comment where I highlight some of the themes
that I heard, or give them some things to think about further.
For the check-in ones, I do.
If they're doing it as a check-in, I just--
just to let them know that I heard them,
and that I'm here, too.
Because that's what the-- to me, that's
what the purpose of the check-in is, to say that, hey,
we're all still here.
So I just-- I quickly respond to those.
- Awesome.
Yeah.
And I'm glad you mentioned that, too.
One of the things that you could do too if you--
I like how you divided up the students into groups.
One of the things that I started doing a little
while ago is now I have it by last name.
And I hope that I get enough students in each group.
And if your last name starts with A through F, for example,
then you're going to answer this one.
If your last name's between this and this,
and so on and so forth, so that I
don't have to go back and make the VoiceThread later on.
But even so, Kolleen doesn't--
even if Kolleen uses the same exact VoiceThread
next semester, all she would have to do
is go back and change out those slides with the student
names in them, and not have to remake the entire thing,
not have to redo the comments either.
OK.
So communicating guidelines-- Kolleen did that,
showcased that.
And you definitely want to communicate your guidelines
about VoiceThread ahead of time if they have never used it.
In terms of how to keep your voice--
how long to keep a VoiceThread going,
I find that one week is really kind of the limit.
I share with them, OK, today's the day that I'd
like you to begin commenting on this particular VoiceThread.
And I'd like you to go back two or three different times.
And then I remind them OK, tomorrow's the last day.
Or I'll say, today is the last day to comment.
And then we'll close it down.
What do you do, Kolleen?
- Yeah.
I just have it based on what the assignment instructions are.
So usually a week is about right.
I don't physically remove it.
But because-- you know, if they wanted to go back to it,
if they were using it for a brainstorm in preparation
for an essay or something they could.
But I don't know that they do.
But--
- Right.
No.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- That's good.
OK.
So again, in terms of creating templates and masters--
every single one I create a template that has my comments.
And when I go and make a copy, I only save my own comments.
The reason why I create the template then--
because you can make a copy without the teacher's voice,
or with the teacher's comments and not the students.
If I'm commenting back to a student,
I don't want to keep that comment.
So it just makes it easier to keep my template,
and it makes it easier to find it.
OK.
I am experimenting here.
Sorry.
OK.
Sorry.
I'm experimenting with using this particular slide
show with my Zoom.
So I'm sorry if I'm blinding people.
I've never had this issue before.
OK.
Kolleen, are you having trouble with changing from slide
to slide when it's yours?
- I was a little bit, yeah.
- OK.
Because I'm trying to think about--
because sometimes it's working.
OK.
Here we go.
All right.
Sorry about that.
I wanted to share that I do have a slide here
which gives very specific instructions about how
to create a VoiceThread, because I
know I went through it quickly.
And I'm not going to read all these instructions,
but I do want to share that you create your PowerPoint-- you
don't have to create a PowerPoint.
You can actually type right onto a slide.
I just find that creating a PowerPoint
is a better way to do it.
And when I've made mistakes on slides, I just go back and I--
instead of starting all over, I just upload a single slide
at a time.
In terms of uploading and adding visuals,
if I'm going to upload or share a video,
I add it at that point in time.
I do not put the video on my PowerPoint.
I wait until I'm on VoiceThread itself,
because I've had problems with it.
And once I'm on VoiceThread, I add a link to a video.
Kolleen, have you had any issues with that at all?
- Yeah.
I do all the videos on VoiceThread directly as well.
- Right.
So then once I have my VoiceThread up and ready to go,
then I create my comments.
And again, I do an audio and video comment.
I will close caption.
I'm starting to now just close caption automatically.
If I need to make a text comment because I'm
using the VoiceThread that particular day,
then I make sure that I do that for any students that I have.
But I do want to share this about accessibility.
You are going into a remote setting.
You are not necessarily online teachers.
And so you already know who your students are, if you are not
doing a nine-week class.
So for example, I have a student who is deaf.
And so I know that I have to make sure
that I have the text available.
In fact, what I'm going to be doing in that particular class,
is I'm going to be asking students
to make text comments just for that particular class.
Because I already know that there is an issue with it.
But with my other classes, that is not
an accessibility problem.
So that is something to consider here.
And then it is--
and then I open it up to students.
All right.
OK.
So Kolleen mentioned this, and I've mentioned this, too.
The great thing about VoiceThread
is that you can focus on content or metacognition or affective
domain issues.
You can use a VoiceThread to introduce new content.
You can use it in the middle and have them practice.
And I would say that Colleen did both with her example.
The VoiceThread that I shared about the short story
genre, that was meant to be something that they looked at
after we had looked at the short stories, and [INAUDIBLE] they
already had a mini lecture.
You could also have it be something
that you do at the end.
And one thing that I've done, which I actually really like
doing, is that I've had students individually create slides
and a slideshow on Google.
And then I download the slideshow to PowerPoint.
I upload it back to VoiceThread.
And then I have the content creators,
which are the students, comment on their own slides.
And that's something you can do as a project,
if you would like.
And then I ask students to go in and comment on two or three
of the different slides.
And then that way, students can actually
be content creators as well.
And then if you were thinking about using VoiceThread
after the fact--
and I use VoiceThread in my face-to-face classes
and my online classes--
thinking about how many VoiceThread assignments
you would like your students to participate in.
If you're using this for remote, you
may decide that this is what you do for lectures.
And this is actually my favorite way
to use VoiceThread is as a lecture.
I like it even better than creating an Adobe Spark
video, which I will do.
And the reason why I like it is that students can stop it.
They can listen to it again, just a particular slide.
They can move forward.
They can move backwards.
And so it is actually very student-friendly.
Kolleen, would you like to add something to that?
- Sure.
Yeah.
I would just say since students do need to create an account,
and it's free and it's quick, but there
is that step of creating an account or downloading the app,
so I would try to at least use it a couple of times
in the semester.
Because it's a little bit annoying
to ask students to go through those steps
of downloading something, and just use it once.
And I think with this shift of transitioning online,
it's good for them to have some consistency.
So if they know that every Wednesday they
do their VoiceThread, then that adds some stability,
some sense of routine.
They get more familiar with it.
So I have it every other week.
I'm using one every other week, because that's when
I start kind of a new unit.
So they know that that's what to expect
when we approach a new unit, is we do our VoiceThread.
- Right.
Right.
And so, yeah.
So if you're going to use it for a particular something--
I love it-- like I used it for MLA.
And every time that students are getting
ready to write that paper, I will send it in an announcement
to remind them, hey, please double-check and make sure
that you know these particular guidelines
for the heading for in-text citations and the bibliography.
So I will remind them several different times as well.
All right.
So I wanted to include this as well.
This is Michelle Pacansky-Brock.
In fact, she's the one who introduced me to VoiceThread
seven or eight years ago.
And I think that you can even look her
up and look at more videos.
She teaches photography and also pedagogy
to instructors, online pedagogy.
But I 100%-- if you go onto VoiceThread,
you can find VoiceThread for your content area.
This is not just for the Humanities.
This is definitely for math.
And there's one thing I did not show you
that I wanted to show you, and that
is the capability of doodle.
Because you can actually comment on a slide,
and doodle on the slide, and ask students to mark up a text,
which could be something wonderful
for any particular class.
So I want to show you that.
And I'm going to go back to--
I'm going to try to go back to this slide here.
Opening that VoiceThread again.
And after this, I'm going to be ask--
I'm going to just stay, actually,
on the VoiceThread itself, so that you have
this in front of your face.
And if you have any questions, I'd
like to open it up at that point as well.
So I'm going to make a comment here.
And I'm hoping I can do a video comment since we're on Zoom--
or an audio comment.
So it gives you a little warning here.
OK.
So if you look down here, there are little colored pencils,
and you can choose any color that you want.
And you can ask students to point to things.
You can ask them to mark something up.
You can ask them to do anything that a little pencil would
do here.
And what's great about this is that you can do that,
and it ends up--
it's uploading.
This is another-- gives you a little warning.
You can save it or redo it.
What's great about that is that you are then
able to ask students to doodle on your slide here.
And it erases by itself.
So it's not like they make a permanent mark.
And I've actually done that when I've
asked students to annotate.
I've asked them to find things and underline and practice
making comments.
So I wanted to show you that particular aspect.
I also here-- want to show you here, we have the three lines.
There's the VoiceThread details.
You can share it, edit, make a copy.
We have embed, export, and then my comments are in English.
So on this show you again--
there we go.
- Gives you a little warning here.
- CC.
There it is.
We can choose English.
We can choose Order.
And then it will be done in about four days.
And it will come to you.
All right.
So I just wanted to show that.
And I want to just say thank you.
I've never had an issue with the PowerPoint here,
or Google slides going backwards and forwards.
So I apologize for that.
All right.
So now I'd like to open it up.
We have about 15 minutes.
Kolleen, would you like to start?
Is there anything that you would like
to add before people start talking about this
or asking questions?
- No.
I think the only thing that we're
wondering about in the Chat, we're
wondering about that free usage that you mentioned,
because I wasn't able to find how
to get that free subscription.
Do you--
- I believe I included an email or an inquiry on the page
itself.
- OK
- Yeah.
So it should be there.
Yes.
- And then, Veronica, you can use a PDF.
You can upload anything.
It doesn't have to be a PowerPoint slide.
It can be a PDF.
If it can be a-- yeah, any image.
- Yeah.
I believe so.
Yeah.
It's anything on your computer.
The one thing though I will tell you that is a little bit wonky,
is that you need to make sure that your PowerPoints are not
too--
like, the visuals are not too big,
or the text is not so big that it covers your entire screen.
Because if you put it on VoiceThread,
sometimes it kind of changes the size.
And I've had issues with that.
So that's another reason why you want
to make comments on your slides before you give them
to students.
I've seen-- I'm like, oh my gosh.
This does not look like how I created it.
And so I've gone back and I've fixed the slide,
and then I uploaded a new one.
Anybody else?
And please feel free to unmute yourselves, and you can chat.
You don't have to physically use the Chat.
It's not necessary unless you want to.
Let me see.
Since there is nobody talking, I want to take a look
and show you something here.
So I'm going to close out.
You press the X to close out the specific VoiceThread.
And I'm going to go to Browse if I can.
And I wanted to show you, there's
higher education, business, art, travel, photography.
There's tutorials.
There's tutorials in Spanish.
And like I said, I've had students who use this.
I've been in classes with colleagues
who use this in math and language and Spanish.
This is, you know, languages.
I've had Spanish teachers use it.
I've had math teachers use it.
Everybody can use it.
Because you can put anything on your slide.
And what I like is, again, is that it allows for students,
if they hear me lecture about a particular idea,
they can go back and listen or read again as many times
as they need to.
So it's very accessible for students in that way.
- Janet, while you're on that page,
would you go to the Create and just show
what it looks like just from scratch?
- Yes.
Yes.
Thank you.
OK.
So here we are.
We have Add Media or Drop Files.
So we can go to My Computer, Media Sources, et cetera.
- So that's where you would sync in your PowerPoint or your PDF
or whatever it is that you want to comment on and have
your students respond to.
So lots of options of file types that you can put there.
Janet and I just happen to use PowerPoint a lot,
but it could be many different file types.
- Right.
Thank you.
Anybody else?
- Linda, you're asking about the students doing their responses.
They respond directly on VoiceThread.
- Yes.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
It's not on--
I mean, it's on Canvas in that I have my VoiceThread embedded
in Canvas.
But the response goes through VoiceThread.
So it's kind of annoying, because it
doesn't link to your grade book automatically.
That's what I said, I have to do the extra step
of the manual grade.
If, as you guys are talking about,
if we get Cerritos to purchase a subscription
and it becomes an integration through Canvas,
then it would sync up with our grade
book, which would be sweet.
- Yes.
Yeah.
And that's why I--
with any of these outside, like I use VoiceThread,
and I use [INAUDIBLE] quite a lot.
And if any of you want to know what [INAUDIBLE] is,
you can send me an email.
I'll respond to that.
But whenever I have them use anything that's
outside of Canvas, even a Google doc,
and I have them create a response,
I have them go back to Canvas.
I have a very short little assignment link there.
And I remind them, please--
I say, go here first.
That's what I title my VoiceThread, go here first--
VoiceThread.
Share that you responded on this VoiceThread here.
Other wording, but very similar, so students know what to do.
They go on to the text box.
They say the date they responded,
who they responded to, and a couple
of things that they learned.
So that way it makes it a little bit easier for me.
Anybody else?
And any ideas or suggestions--
if you were listening to this, and you went,
oh, I'd really like to do this versus that.
All right.
Well, OK.
So I will say one other thing.
Again, you can have slides, but you can also
have videos put within your actual VoiceThreads.
And I like that as well.
So I might have a short two to three-minute video
that I would like them to respond to.
It's helpful if those videos have already
been closed captioned though.
All right.
If no one else has any other questions,
we'll end the meeting.
And thank you again.
I'm sorry for the issues.
I've never quite had issues like that, but--