Robin Ladouceur, Foreign Language Resource Specialist, from the Center for Language Study gave a demo of VoiceThread. VoiceThread is an online media album that can hold any type of media (images, documents and videos) allowing people to make comments in 5 different ways – using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) – and share them with anyone they wish. A VoiceThread allows group conversations to be collected and shared in one place, from anywhere in the world.

Voicethread is a free, online program that, like flickr, you can pay a small fee ($29.99/yr) to upgrade your account for more flexibility. You can use VoiceThread to browse already existing VoiceThreads or to easily create your own. You can start with images or video imported from anywhere (flickr, Facebook, Powerpoint, Excel, Word, PDF) and then add either a textual or audio comment.
Robin showed the following to explain, http://voicethread.com/#home.b409.i3113.

Robin showed created a VoiceThread during the session:

Robin explained that VoiceThread was initially used by the K-12 community but has applications in higher education across every discipline.Michael Farina, Lector in the Department of Italian, gave a demo on how he used VoiceThread with his language classes, encouraging students to comment in Italian on images he provides. This allows several students to comment on an image and Michael can comment on the students pronunciation right within the VoiceThread software. He feels his students are more engaged in their work as a result of these exercises and it allows the emphasis to be on pronunciation. He also cited his uses of Viddler, a video site similar to youtube.com, in his classes.

Highlighted advantages of VoiceThread:

It allows for both synchronous and asynchronous interactions.
VoiceThreads can be exported as movies and embedded in blogs, Facebook, websites, etc.
You can narrate both still images and video.
VoiceThread has the best interface of this type of software (another example cited was SlideRocket)

She shared the following VoiceThreads to show the software’s versatility:

Cell Portfolio; Biology
Civil War project
19th Century Literature
Barbie Bungee & Linear Regression Math
Going on a Line Hunt; Math
Habitat Fragmentation; Ecology & Environmental Science
Perceptions of the Human Form; Art History
Final Project; Photography class portfolio
Museum 2.0 coLab; Humanities; Art; Science
Art History VoiceThread Demo
Brazil EFL Course
Kenya Escape
Dr. Quinn’s Love Line