Weekly Report & Reflection Post #9 - VoiceThread

It's finally week 9 of this very long journey of digital learning! This week I explored a tool called VoiceThread, it is very unique in the way it helps people collaborate. Voice Thread allows you to create slide shows and add comments to it. Of course it also allows other users who are signed in to also add comments to your slides if you so desire. However the uniqueness of VoiceThread is that you can leave your comment in not just text but also audio and video format. For me, that sounds really cool but also useful, which I will discuss below.

As I mentioned, VoiceThread allows you to leave audio or video comments on slides created by yourself or others. I think this will contribute to my learning as that will allow me to hear what others have to say about my work, quite literarily. It will help my learning because while others can leave text feedback, there are some things that are much better communicated verbally. By receiving a combination of text, audio and video comments on slides that I can create, I will be able to maximize the quality of my work. I think VoiceThread will fit very well into my PLE's Collaborating and Socializing category. This is because overall VoiceThread is truly a socializing and collaborating tool, it allows you to comment on others' work and also discuss them through the comments. I will be able to use this tool very effectively when I need to work with others for academic projects. I think this tool is similar to other collaborating tools in terms of the basic functions it can provide, that is it allows you to share work with others through the cloud. However what makes this tool different is the way you can communicate with others regarding the material you have shared. Adding audio and video as a medium of communication can enrich the learning process of participants.

Common Sense Media

This week I found an interesting article in my Feedly reader. It is an article that talks about an app called Digital Passport for Kids. The app has games that teach children how to be "safe, smart, and kind online". I think this game is really important as it addresses some crucial digital responsibilities and allows kids to expand their digital literacy. By teaching young children digital responsibilities like protecting one's privacy or being respectful online will go a long way for when they become adults. I strongly believe that by teaching young children early on in their life how to deal with the fast growing technologies of today will help protect them in the future and prevent any abuse of the technologies.

Thanks for reading this week's blog. Be prepared for more reflection from me in next weeks' blog on new digital tools that I will explore.