My Voice on VoiceThread 5-15-09

This is the first experience that I have had working with VoiceThread. It was really user-friendly. Taking the pictures and organizing the presentation was a breeze. Our biggest challenge was finding the time for each student to record their voice in a quiet setting. Students loved the fact that they could preview what they sounded like before saving. Needless to say, there were MANY redos. They were constantly remarking that they didn't sound like themselves or didn't like the way they sounded saying a certain word. It was actually a good tool to use for them to monitor their fluency while reading their information sheets and 5 interesting facts. The students were quick to notice how often they paused while reading, got "stuck" on a word, or repeated themselves. They most enjoyed viewing the final product and were very excited to share the VoiceThread with their parents.As for my experience with creating the VoiceThread for instructional use, I must admit it was pretty frustrating at times. Uploading the PowerPoint was a snap, but when I viewed it, the transfer process appeared to distort some of my text and speech bubbles. After fixing this, I began recording the narrative portion. This was more complicated than when the children used it. Often, it would not record my voice, or it would appear to be recording and then halfway through playback, my voice would fade off. I couldn't figure out if I was saying too much or if there was just a glitch in the VoiceThread site that day. In the end, I managed to get all I wanted to say for each slide recorded. It turned out to be a pretty cute presentation. I'm looking forward to seeing how the students like it.