We had a bit of a fraught time with out internet connections during the last term of 2009-2010. It threatened the collaboration that the class were doing with @henriettaMi’s class in Sydney, Australia. But where there’s a will, there’s a way!!!! And what is more, the collaborative project we did with our voicethreads has made it to the Sydney Morning Herald! WOW – how amazing is it to have our school and our work shared all the way across the world!
We were using the class rainforest wiki to share our artwork – but that proved difficult given the slow internet speed. Fortunately however, there’s always a plan B, C, D, etc when using web 2.0 technology and Ms Miller’s class used voicethread to share their aboriginal style artwork, using the comment tools to share the thinking that had gone into the work. Our pupils were then able to add their own comments – they were just so in awe, that two stars and a wish comments were mostly two stars and no wishes!
In turn, we published our own voicethread with our own aboriginal style artwork. I was able to use the voicethread to give my own feedback to pupils – I can see that the potential of voicethread as a formative/assessment for learning tool is going to be huge. And when I say huge, I probably should say *****HUGE!!!!!***** We’d already tried voicethread for MFL and literacy purposes, I’d thought about the maths potential of using for sharing strategies – but now we have assessment tools that can support our diagnosis of learning gaps, support our feedback, support self/peer feedback, support collaborative feedback/assessment with others across a range of subjects – I have to say, I had never thought about using it for art before!!!
I just hope the kids never lose that excitement about sharing their work with others who live across the other side of the world.
