How does VoiceThread compare to Voice Authoring tools?

VoiceThread can expand your use of asynchronous voice and video conversations far beyond what you have done in the past with Blackboard Voice tools. If you are making the transition and are new to VoiceThread, however, you might simply want to recreate those past assignments with VoiceThread’s toolset. Here you’ll find workflows to do just that.

This guide will focus only on how VoiceThread compares with Blackboard Voice tools; it will not cover the more expansive and enhanced ways of using VoiceThread. Those basic goals are:

Voice Board: Post and listen to voice messages within discussion boards.
Voice Presentation: Annotate web pages with voice messages.
Voice Podcaster: Create or upload podcasts for user subscription.
Voice Email: Send and listen to voice content through email messages.

The VT Basics

In order to understand how VoiceThread compares with Blackboard Voice, it is important to understand what a VoiceThread is. Embedded below is a quick overview.

See the quick tutorials below to see each of VoiceThread’s core features in action.

In addition, here is some information about VoiceThread features that compare to common Blackboard Voice features:

After reviewing those resources, you probably have a good idea of how you could use VoiceThread to enhance your own courses. Your imagination is the only limit. To help you get started, however, we’re including here the best ways to achieve what you have done with Blackboard Voice tools in the past.

Getting your content from Blackboard Voice to VoiceThread

For details about how to export your existing content from Blackboard Voice and importing that to VoiceThread, please see this guide.

Voice Board

VoiceThread is a great alternative for text-based discussion boards and can take your Voice Boards to the next level. Start by creating a VoiceThread (see the tutorial above). You’ll need at least one piece of media to “anchor” your conversation. This will be the focal point of your conversation. It could be a presentation slide, a document, or even just a video you record using your webcam.

Once the VoiceThread has been created, share with your students so they can begin contributing to the conversation using their voices, video, and/or text. The students’ comments will appear in the conversation channel on the left-hand side of your slide.

Voice Presentation

The best way to annotate web page content in VoiceThread is to first take a screenshot of the web page you want to discuss. Once you have your screenshot, simply create a new VoiceThread and upload your screenshot as the central media.

Once the VoiceThread has been created, you and your students can record voice or video comments and annotate on that screenshot. You can always come back to a VoiceThread to add more slides.

Voice Podcaster

VoiceThreads make a great platform for lectures, and they can even take lectures a step further by making them interactive. Upload your lecture material, whether you have PowerPoint slides, images, documents, or even videos, and then record your lecture as comments on those slides. If you’d like, you can open the VoiceThread to comments from students, but you can also simply allow viewing if you don’t want them to interact with the leture.

Any VoiceThread can be shared with whomever you’d like. The most common use is to share securely with just a single course or even a single student. You can also make a VoiceThread public, however, and invite other people to subscribe to it. Click here to learn how to publish a VoiceThread.

Once a VoiceThread has been published or shared, anyone who sees it can opt to subscribe.

People who have subscribed can opt to receive notifications when new comments are recorded on the VoiceThreads they are following. Click here to learn more about adjusting your notification preferences.

Voice Email

Any VoiceThread can be shared via email. It is more common to share VoiceThread directly within a Blackboard course, but if you do want to send it via email, simply follow the steps here.

When the recipient receives the notification that you have shared with them, he or she will be able to click on the link in that email to be taken straight to your VoiceThread.

You can also simply grab the share link for your VoiceThread and paste it into an email that you send yourself.