Flickr and Voicestream: Innovative Classroom Tool, or Another Way to Procrastinate Grading

I'm pretty sure that I'm going to make Flickr and Voicethread a part of my final project. Right now, I just have to decide on which unit I will use them.

My two options are "Call of the Wild" and "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry". In the past, I've gone out and located images that depicted the time period and struggles present in these two stories. What I'm thinking is a combination research project and synthesis assignment in which students locate photos and images related to each story and create a slide show in which they include a narration describing the pictures, why they chose them, and what specific character or event from our story the pictures can help us understand. To keep the higher ups happy, I will also have them write and turn in a printed script of what they decide to narrate. To culminate, we'll have a share session of our voicethread projects and then comment on each others' work on the class blog (or ning if I can get that up and running in time).

I'm hoping that some of the less motivated students will turn it up a notch knowing that their work will be seen by their peers, and possibly their parents once we get everything posted. The technology aspect won't hurt the motivation part either. I think that as a teaching tool leading up to the actual assignment, we'll spend a day or two in the lab putting together small voicethreads that show off our personalities. As they say in some of the NUA trainings I've done, "New strategy, old content. Old strategy, new content". By the time we get to the actual assignment, we'll be able to focus on the content more than the technology...that is, until the internet crashes in the middle of 1st block again like it did last time. Perhaps a writing prompt as a back up...? sigh.

Here is a slide show of pictures I put together at my favorite dog walking spot where I used to live. The Voicethread version includes a narration that explains the ridiculousness of that day because it was a snow day. As a native Minnesotan, I felt obligated to photograph this hike...for reasons, I think, are obvious in the pictures.