Keli, I’m honoured that you will be using these examples with the teachers you work with, I hope they go on to do even better things with VoiceThread.

Mary, these portfolios were just done by my classroom, but I recently shared the idea and examples with the rest of the elementary school. I hope many more teachers take it on as a way for students to reflect on their learning and share their “stuff” with their family. We took about two solid weeks of all our literacy time (1 hour a day), a couple of afternoons (1 hour at a time) during the two weeks, plus some scripting set for homework, to complete the portfolios. This year we plan to be adding pages as the year progresses so this is completely embedded into our classroom practice.

Cathy, thanks for your suggestion about identities – I’d taught the students about identities when we previously used VoiceThread but we completely forgot about it when we did these portfolios!

Paula, thanks for leaving comments – that was exciting for everyone!

Kudos to you!

~ Keli Kinsella
Instructional Coach
Office of Professional Development
Cherry Creek Schools

I left comments on both VT and hope they get reinforcement from others as well. In fact when I do this next year I am going to make getting feedback from someone other then a parent a part of the project. I can envision the principal, past and future teachers, neighbors, other relatives and even peers being invited to add comments.

Thanks for an inspiring way to use VoiceThread.

Our students, 6-8th grade, have to have strict time parameters for creating their avatar on photobooth as well as choosing their pictures, so I like the idea of scripting first.

When I had my own classes, we used to do everyone on the teacher account, but in January, we talked VoiceThread into charging us 50cents/child instead of the $1 and we went ahead with the ed account for 6th and 8th grade. As a coach I made sure I found ways in the teachers’ curriculum to give them a VT option for assessment and so they created at least one VT for each core class, but the portfolio idea fits in so well with our student led conferences that I’d like to share this with my principal.

One thing I had the parents do when they recorded or typed a comment was to change the identity by clicking the avatar on the bottom right corner and identifying themselves as ______’s mom, etc. For those students with no computer access, or parents that were too busy, they were allowed to ask any adult on campus. The kids had grandparents, aunts, older siblings, homeroom advisors and even our principal seeing their work and commenting. When the avatar is changed, then it was easier for the teacher to see who had comments. If no one commented on a child’s work, one of us would do it. It was also an easy way to keep track if the teacher wanted to give some kind of credit to the child for presenting their VT to someone outside of class and getting real feedback.

Mahalo (thanks) again for sharing.