By Judit Török, Ph.D, Professor of Philosophy, General Education Director, Center for Teaching and Learning at Pratt Institute
Recording your voice comments on VoiceThread is a great way to practice and strengthen your public speaking and oral communication skills. Below please find some practical tips and recommendations for creating and managing your VoiceThread assignments.
1. First step is to read the instructions carefully and make sure that you have your technology set up correctly. To avoid tech-related frustrations down the line, I recommend that you figure out how to use this tool and practice it a couple times.
2. Collect your thoughts first before you start recording. If you have a hard time speaking on the spot, sometimes it helps to write out what you want to say first. This could be a bulleted list of key ideas; or a more detailed text that you can read or reference while recording.
3. If you don’t like the way your recording sounds after the first take, delete it and re-record it. You can do this as many times as you get the one that you are happy with. Then submit the assignment for grading.
4. When you find that you can’t seem to speak about the assignment topic without just reading your slides, try to imagine that you are facing another person and explaining to them what you want to say. Or, even better, ask a friend to sit across from you, (or last resort, put a stuffed animal next to your computer) and imagine talking to them, using your natural voice.
3. If you have a hard time following or understanding what other students are saying, you can change the speed of the playback to slower or faster, depending on your needs.
4. Be sure to also listen to what other students recorded, it’s a big part of the learning experience – and respond with a comment (or follow the assignment instructions otherwise). You can record your response to other students as a voice comment or use the text comment feature, or both.
5. Finally, I can’t say this often enough: once you have completed your VoiceThread assignment, please press the SUBMIT button, to indicate to the instructor that your assignment is complete and ready for grading.
Resources
- Contact SPS Help Desk: helpdesk@sps.cuny.edu; (646) 664-8592
Other issues you might encounter:
- If your VoiceThread assignment doesn’t open (even after you clicked on the assignment in Brightspace) – I suggest two things 1/ click on it and just wait a few seconds, sometimes it takes while to load; do not click around while it’s loading, just wait patiently 2/ try it on a different browser, I find that Chrome browser works better for me on a computer, and not on a mobile, especially the first time I’m accessing it. If none of these suggestions work, please contact the SPS HelpDesk directly so they can help with your technical issues.
- If you find that in a VoiceThread assignment you can see that other students have posted but you can’t hear them, it’s probably a hardware issue on your end. You should check your speakers or headphones.
I hope you find these tips helpful!
