During our first course in this certification program, eLearning for Educators, we were introduced to a technology tool, “VoiceThread” – a media aggregate which allows for a collaborative, multimedia slide show displaying images, documents and videos accompanied with people's comments using their voice, text, or audio file. Instructors can record students’ thoughts and opinions about historical images, artwork, etc. and create presentations that become collaborative endeavors. As an educator who teaches pre-service teachers how to integrate arts learning into core curriculum, this technology tool really resonated with me.
Exploring the VT website, I found an excellent VoiceThread project created by 3 different classrooms of students from different regions of the country. 2nd graders from Utah created artwork depicting a place they love to visit or imagine visiting. 9th graders from Colorado composed poetry addressing their perceptions of the artwork. Then, as a link, it was sent to a classroom in Texas, where students worked to compose an original piece of music for each image using GarageBand. The results was truly inspiring. This VT project was very creative, original and provided multiple learning opportunities in both technology applications and multi-arts (visual, music & poetry) for the participants.
Even though I was not experienced in this new technology application, I showed my summer cohort of students several examples of VoiceThread projects and presented them with an idea. We could create a VT project of them learning different art forms during the artists’ workshops in my course. I would edit and put these video recordings into a VoiceThread medium and ask each student to contribute a recording of their reflections addressing how they might integrate, say movement and dance, into core subject areas for teaching.
My students fully embraced this project even though it was not included in my original course syllabus. What I learned from this experience reminded me of a discussion we read by visionary scholar, John Seely Brown, where he discusses how technology is fostering a new culture for learning. Brown states, " Our argument brings to the fore the old aphorism "imagination is more important than knowledge." In a networked world, information is always available and getting easier and easier to access. Imagination, what you actually do with that information, is the new challenge." Educators need to become more fluid with conveying knowledge and focus also upon the context for how new knowledge can be applied and appreciated. I will keep this thought in mind as I begin thinking about my on-line course.
By L.D.Fink "The single most powerful change most teachers can make in their course is to expand the experiential dimension of student learning."
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