Research Category: K-12

In today’s digital world, Extension professionals are using a wide variety of tools to gather feedback and data from program participants and stakeholders (Rowntree, Wittman, Lindquist, & Raven, 2013). Through online asynchronous discussion boards, chat rooms, and even online live synchronous discussions, the Internet has changed the manner of qualitative data collection forever (Stancanelli, 2010). VoiceThread (http://voicethread.com) is a multimedia platform used by primary and secondary school educators around the world as a storytelling and collaborative tool that also offers promise as a tool for qualitative program evaluation. The unique features of VoiceThread provide a rich backdrop for conducting virtual focus group interviews.

This article explores VoiceThread as an online tool for supporting literacy and Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) within the top three levels of the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy.  VoiceThread is a collaborative Web 2.0 tool allowing users to create, share, and comment on images, documents, and videos.  Readers are first provided with an overview of VoiceThread followed by curriculum opportunities for using VoiceThread to analyze, evaluate, and create.

Versatile, easy-to-navigate, and interactive, VoiceThread equips teachers to deploy numerous best instructional practices that engage 21st century students in rigorous literacy activities. Upgrade your current teaching strategies with VoiceThread for Digital Education and create an environment where every student learns every day

The purpose of this workshop is to help K-12 teachers to understand some useful techniques in using the VoiceThread web 2.0 in and out of the classroom. It is also designed to give K-12 teachers good skills that will allow them to use the VoiceThread confidently with their students. In addition, teachers will be able to practice, negotiate with others, and end up with good activities that enable them to have full understanding of this application and how it can be used as a powerful and motivating tool to help students in the learning process. Although the main focus of this workshop is on teaching English as a second language (ESL), all teachers can benefit from attending this workshop and then apply it to their specific classes.

Today’s classrooms are definitely changing. While in the past, additional language teachers might have only had target-language newspapers and periodicals at their disposal to create an authentic L2 language learning environment for their students, today’s technological tools erase the barriers that once separated L1 and L2 learners and their environments. With the advent of Web 2.0 tools, additional language educators can extend their classrooms beyond the traditional brick-and-mortar walls to communicate with the world. One of the best ways to do so is to introduce VoiceThread into language lessons. In doing so, students can create conversations that extend across the classroom or across the globe.

Consider these three students: Jeremy, who is easily distracted and who has difficulty staying on task in social studies; Brad, who has specific learning disabilities that place him at risk of dropping out due to lack of motivation and fear of failure; and Angelina, who has received interventions through several grade levels to address her struggles with assignments and assessments. This article shows how a web-based learning tool can boost the learning skills and motivation of these students and many others as they work with multimedia to explore subject areas, express their ideas, and share information – and all at their own pace and learning level.

Development of receptive and expressive language skills is an important foundational skill in early childhood education. Recently, early childhood education professionals have begun using Web-based technology to assist in developing these skills. One Web-based technology that holds potential to support children’s learning is VoiceThread which has unique features that support Universal Design for Learning. This paper provides practical recommendations for use of VoiceThread in meaningful learning activities that can easily be implemented. A step-by-step guide is presented to create and use VoiceThread.

This action research study was conducted on a fourth grade rural classroom in Orange County, N.Y. for the purpose of determining if the use of the VoiceThread program will affect student performance in mathematics writing. A baseline of student performance on this measure was administered in the fall of 2010 using the NYS Holistic rubric of a 3 point total value as provided from the NYS 2009 4th grade Math Test. Four questions on varying topics were pulled from the same test as the rubric mentioned here. In addition, a graphic organizer was utilized to support organization of student thoughts on the problem. A survey was administered to the students at the end of this study which demonstrated positive attitudes towards the use of graphic organizers and the VoiceThread Program to communicate in math. Other results of the data provide positive results with an increase in student performance. Implications from this study’s results should lead educators to try VoiceThread as a way to increase communication in mathematics and also to increase 21st century skills in their own classrooms. Recommendations for further studies in this area include; making the sample size larger, paying more attention to the type of question the participants work on and having the parties conducting the study someone different than the teacher of the participants. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure, and an appendix.)

Many challenges that preschool children with disabilities encounter in the curriculum can be addressed by identifying AT support as part of a child’s individual family service plan (IFSPs) or individualized education program (IEP). These solutions, however, are specific to the child and connected to specific goals and objectives, rather than connected to steps in planned classroom activities designed for typical peers (and to associated benchmarks and standards). Flexible participation is a way for teachers to incorporate unique AT solutions to help young children participate in steps of a planned, technology-supported preschool activity along with their typical peers. Because many preschool teachers are just beginning to understand UDL and to implement its principles into planned, technology-supported activities, using flexible participation should be viewed as a work in progress.

Although there is a vast research base on the literacy practices of adolescents and the issues surrounding the integration of technology despite current widespread access to tools and the Internet (Cuban, 2003), very little has been completed on the attempts of teacher educators to integrate technology within a specific content area to prepare future classroom teachers (Boling, 2010; Bruce & Hogan, 1998; Goodson & Mangan, 1995; Koehler, Mishra, Yahya, & Yadav, 2004; Pang & Kamil, 2004). Based on the technological pedagogical content knowledge framework, the current study explores how technology can be used to improve teaching within the content area of English/language arts by examining the artifacts and reflections of 21 pre- and in-service secondary English teachers at a large university in the Southwestern United States. It explores how the digital medium VoiceThread could support their efforts to teach poetry. Results indicate that these future teachers found VoiceThread to be an effective tool to prepare, implement, and teach poetry to secondary students. (Contains 2 tables and 3 figures.)