I love using VoiceThread with students. I find it easy to use, intuitive, and very flexible. It’s not for every situation, but what it does, letting you add photos or video, with narration or audio commentary, it does very well. I love to use it in particular ways, letting students pick pictures to add to a class VoiceThread. The only problem with that was finding photos, and making sure that student did the proper attribution. With primary students, I really had to add them in as you can see on this VoiceThread.

VoiceThread has just added a new feature that gets a great source of high quality public domain/Creative Commons images, and automates the attribution process. Based on a new partnership with New York Public Library, you can access their digital pool of images with just a click. When you are creating or editing a VoiceThread, click on Upload, and choose Media Sources. You will then see the usual VoiceThread choices of My VoiceThreads, Flickr, and Facebook, but also NYPL. When you click on that, a search box appears at the top, and a gallery of “collections” shows up. Click on the picture, then the import button at the top right, and voila, it’s on your VoiceThread. You can keep adding more photos, or click on the Close[x] button at the top right. When the photo is added, an active link with the source is put in, attributing the photo. Here is an example:

But wait, there’s more commons media goodness! There has always been the ability to hook up VoiceThread to your Flickr account. To get other people’s photos that were “commons” licensed, you have to go through the messy process of using the URL and adding a link back. NO MORE! Now, click on flickr, it asks for access to your account, but in addition, it lets you do a tag search on commons licensed photos by others, and when selected, will give the same active link back that will suffice as proper credit.

This “tip” came to me from the VoiceThread Twitter account. Please consider following them for updates and information.

How and why I use VoiceThread for skeptics, and others:

Looking Backwards: What Went Well: Voice Thread

VoiceThread a K-W-L Chart for the 21st Century

The VERY last paragraph of this post talks about how I used oral questioning strategies with students to discuss a written error