VoiceThread and Digital Storytelling

After working on this project, I can definitely see some obvious advantages as well as disadvantages to using digital storytelling. By creating a slideshow to accompany important facts or ideas, students can make a more emotional and personal connection to the information. For my VoiceThread, I chose to do a lesson on endangered species. In this way I could introduce several species in a few different situations where they might be encountered (ex. the zoo vs. the wild). I really like being able to place images with the information because it definitely benefits visual learners and provides obvious examples to students.

The downside was that creating the slideshow took a lot of time. I had a lot of problems with placing the photos I wanted to use onto VoiceThread. I tried uploading through a URL and when that didn't work, I tried saving to my computer to upload. I'm thinking maybe the site was having problems while I was trying to do this. However, once I got my pictures onto the site, I did like that I was able to rearrange and re-organize the photos. Also, I would have preferred to use my own voice for the comments instead of using a text based method of communication. However, the microphone on my laptop does not work, and I do not have access to an external microphone. For these reasons, this is a technology that I could see myself using occasionally, but not constantly. I think that a digital story would be a great introduction to a topic. Also, students could use digital storytelling to create a slideshow showcasing important ideas from a lesson. This would be a form of assessment that would be engaging and informative.