What Difference Does Voice Make?

I first discovered VoiceThread a couple of months back and I've been eagerly exploring its possibilities ever since.  (You can read more and see my first JJL thread on this rapid fire round up in January).

When we settled on digital learning as the theme for this month it seemed like the perfect opportunity to explore its potential further, adding in the dimensions of conversation and collaboration as well as the (already powerful) combination of pictures and voice.

A number of JJL authors have signed up to join in this experiment during April, but I'm hoping more of you will be tempted in once you see this post and dip into the thread.  You're certainly all very welcome.

What I've created so far is a fairly open thread that asks a number of questions and hopefully prompts some conversation and debate.

The questions I've posed are these:

• What difference does voice make?
• How could we use VoiceThread to support learning?
• How could we use VoiceThread to help build a digital community?
• Can voice help JJL honk?

But maybe more questions will emerge as we go along... or maybe you've got some of your own? 

If you have got questions, comments or ideas do please do join in the conversation.  To leave a comment you do need to register with VoiceThread, but it's free and only requires an e-mail and a password then you're away.  You can upload comments via a microphone, by phone (might be limited to the US?), via webcam, or typed if you're not able or ready to leave a voice comment.

To play the thread, just click the play button in the middle of the screen.  The thread will play through to the end, playing and highlighting comments as it goes.  If there are a few comments on the screen they'll play in turn - you can watch the progress in the little bar at the very bottom of the screen which is segmented if there's more than one comment.  A long line signifies a longer comment, short - short!  This gives you control of the number of comments you choose to play (if we end up with many).  You can also move backwards and forwards through the screens using the browser buttons at the foot of the thread.

One of the things that excites me most about this is hearing the voices of readers and authors that I 'know' online but have never and may never meet.  Hearing their voices definitely adds something different to the mix, and I'm looking forward to getting to know more of the JJL community through shared voices as this experiment rolls.

We'll be back with the results later in the month, sharing, I hope, both what we learned from the experiment, and a rich thread of jubilant voices.

UPDATE: We already have voices on the thread from Scotland, Australia, Canada... To hear them, just play the thread.  To join them, just sign in and record your comment. 

And for once, as David reminded me, we're not asking for your comments here at JJL, but over at VoiceThread.  Come and join us!

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The author Joanna Young is a writing coach who lives and works in Edinburgh.

You can read more of her work at the Confident Writing blog.

She's been experimenting with VoiceThread there too, with recent posts on 5 Ways To Trust In The Power Of Your Words and Walking Our Way Into Words (which includes two reader comments on the last slide, and got her hooked on this medium!)

Comments

[David Zinger]

Joanna,
Way to get it going. I made 2 voice comments and 1 written comment on the thread. I encourage others to leave your comments right on the voice thread rather than here.
David

[Rosa Say]

Aloha everyone, I have just left a few comments on the voice thread, and for those of you who have not yet tried it; it was my first time too, and so easy to do!

The sign-up was a snap, and I found that using the same headphones I use for my Skype calls worked really great (and free, with no limit compared to the telephone).

You can save or discard your comments after you have a chance to listen to them, previewing them first, so please do give it a try!

[Joanna Young]

I'm glad that you've found it easy to use so far.

I'm going to have to include a postscript in the follow-up post about combining voicethread with twitter, because it is proving a fantastic way to bring new voices to the JJL community.

Rosa, you're right, hearing you speak those words changes them instantly, immediately, lodges them differently in my head. And who wouldn't want to listen to your sweet voice? Thanks for sharing it.

Joanna