VoiceThread: Making poetry relevant

What do I want technology to do? I want it to elicit a sense of thrill and creativity, to foster an immediate desire for exploration. I giggled when I discovered VoiceThread.

This is a tool that enables the creation of individual or collaborative multimedia slideshows featuring text, audio, image and video files. The slides can be commented on, by the owner or others, in a text, audio and/or video format.

The tool’s highly user-friendly and well sign-posted interface makes it suitable for students of all stages, backgrounds and most levels of English proficiency. The tool is hosted on an online platform and does not require a program to be downloaded.

Why is VoiceThread special? It offers an engaging opportunity for students to read, write, speak, view and represent any form of text, to do so in a manner that is both personalised and within a community of learners. It also gives students the opportunity to develop skills in self and peer review. My favourite example is the illustrated poetry text created by a third-grade class in the US.

The empty-shell nature of the tool means it could be utilised across all disciplines and student groups and to address most learning outcomes. In particular, I think VoiceThread would be an excellent way to introduce poetry writing and analysis to reluctant Stage 4 (ages 12 to 14) English students ('Poetry is dumb', 'Poetry is boring', 'Why do we need to do poetry?').

I outline here a possible approach, which would take place over a number of highly scaffolded lessons:

Students are introduced to the VoiceThread text, to establish the sense of a communal project and text and to encourage them to start thinking about the multi-modal nature of poetry. The possibilities are instantly multi-sensory and offer the chance to create an online identity and community.

The students produce a short poem around a coherent theme, or in response to a poem or poet they are studying.

The students then produce or find an image that best illustrates their poem. This could be a drawing or a photo, etc, and either figurative or abstract.

Students are asked to produce an audio commentary in which they read the poem, then provide a brief comment on their poem and image.

When the class or group slideshow is complete, the students are randomly allocated the slides of five of their peers to review (they can review more if they wish). They can do this in written, audio or video format. This last stage completes the cycle by encouraging students to reflect on the processes of their own work and the different manner in which their peers approached the text. This step develops their collaborative, critical and self and peer evaluation skills.

Some of the benefits of VoiceThread for the learning activity detailed here include: the development of a sense of class community; the opportunity for highly personalised interactions, between peers and between students and teachers; the increased engagement with and personalisation of the poem for students by the act of ‘speaking’ the poem; and an increased sense among the students that poetry can be valid and enjoyable and, in this instance, result in a published text.

A final key reflection on VoiceThread is that it enables amendments to be made according to the special needs of students. If a student cohort includes a sight-impaired student, the class could be required to provide an audio component. If the cohort includes a hearing impaired student, the class could be asked to include a text transcript of any audio or video material they add. The same could be required if the class included students of low-level English language proficiency. Also, it enables students whose English speaking proficiency is still developing, or students who are shy or anxious, to participate in and enjoy speaking tasks without the need to stand in front of the class.

Enjoy! M