Saturday, March 30, 2013

The Wonders of VoiceThread


Hello everyone!
I came across two particular VoiceThreads, created by my colleagues Ci He and Miao Gu that used the tools within VoiceThreads in an appropriate classroom setting. What I enjoyed about these threads was that I was able to express myself and continue to feel as though I was a student in a classroom. Miao's thread served as an icebreaker, which often happens within classrooms from early childhood through Graduate school. In getting to know your classmates, acquaintances and colleagues, small icebreakers are very appropriate. In addition, with the setting being made mostly for international students, it offered a lending hand to that audience in discussing their feelings of homesickness, and their overall adjustment in being in a different land. Ci's thread included a sheet of expectations and thoughts on my academic objectives and interest in topics in the position of a student learning Second Language Acquisition. I felt that this was a different form of an icebreaker, with a thicker tone leaning towards an early linking of academic understanding between the teacher and student. Both threads included tasks that I would expect to see featured in courses on the first day of a semester. For teaching, an understanding of teacher and student must be established, may it be the expectations of the teacher or the student; or the background in which the student comes from. These threads formed connections with the participating students and the distributing teachers. A sense of connection formed early between students and teachers must be made in order for it not to waver as time moves along.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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