VoiceThread is offering free educator accounts for all k-12 classroom educators. These free accounts are identical to the Pro account in almost every aspect. After you are signed in and on the Browse, Create, or Myvoice pages click the button up top that says 'Go Pro' and then click the link in the next window that says 'K-12 classroom educators'.

But of course it's true that nothing in life is truly free, so here is what we want in return:

1. You must, in fact, be a K-12 classroom educator and sign up using your school assigned e-mail address (this is important, and we'll need to occasionally verify it)
2. You must continue to invent and explore with VoiceThread.
3. We are counting on your feedback and ideas so that we may continue to grow while remaining simple to use.
4. You must help each other. Technology in the classroom is not a fad, it's here to stay, but it needs a dedicated community that shares ideas and success stories in order to develop best practices.

That's it. If the deal sounds good to you then apply for the free account by hitting the 'Go Pro' button. We'll send a confirmation e-mail to your school based e-mail address. Just click the link in the confirmation e-mail and you're all set.

p.s. If you don't get the e-mail make sure to check you spam folder, it can get stuck in there sometimes.

We really appreciate having a Pro version free for educators. VoiceThread is a fantastic tool that's simple yet stylish to use in the classroom for learning/teaching purposes as it lends itself so well to a variety of authentic and relevant activities. In the words of my students ..... VoiceThread rocks!

Sounds great

Our Year 5 class here in South Australia is about to get started on using VoiceThread as part of a collaborative project with other Year 5 classes across the globe. I am really impressed with the ease of use and will certainly be encouraging other colleagues to be using it, through our Catholic Education System's online forum on Web 2.0 tools. Thanks.

Hi Erica,

it's ok if your school address ends in .org, go ahead and fill out the form. Also, I know this sounds strange but we don't yet have a way to completely delete your account, we're working out the details and should be done soon. The difficulty is deciding how to handle a user's comments on other peoples Threads, do they disappear when their account is deleted? Anyway, we'll get it worked out soon.

Thanks,

-Steve

Hi Peggy,

you should be o.k. we don't absolutely require a .edu address(we just look a little closer if it's not;) It's possible you're not logged in and that's why you don't see the 'Go Pro' button. Make sure you are and let me know if it doesn't appear.

and thanks so much for the praise, we really appreciate it.

-Steve

Hi Peggy,

could you tell me your e-mail address that you're using for this account? Not here, but send it to help@voicethread.com and I'll look up your account to see what status it has. Maybe that will tell us something.

-Steve

Hi Steve,
I signed up at home with my teaching e-mail address. At home I saw the "Go Pro" Button but not on my school computer. It must be blocked by the school filter?? Now I have the problem at home that after I signed up and in the "Go Pro" button is now a shopping cart only. When I click on it there is no "educator's" button to click. I am just taken to pay for it. I am sending my school e-mail account to the address you asked Peggy to in the above forum response. I really want to do this when I return to school on Monday with my students for the Martin Luther King program on Friday. Help please.
Thanks,
Tara

Hello, I have an email address that ends in @notes.k12.hi.us and I have not been able to sign up for the educator account. I fill out all the boxes and they all show teh green check except for the email and re-enter email one at the bottom. I'm not sure if this is because of the weird email address or what. Anyway, I am really excited about using this for my classroom, please let me know how I should proceed because three voicethreads will not be nearly enough for me. Thank you for your time. Eric

Hi Kris,

Sorry for the pop up, feels a little like an ad doesn't it?;)

The Educator account is free, but if you want to work in the Ed.VoiceThread network there's a one time $10 verification fee because it's an accountable network where there are no free accounts. But you don't need to join it if you don't want to. Let me know if you keep getting that pop up, it sounds like it could be a bug.

Thanks,

I recently tried signing up for an Ed.VoiceThread account. I paid through Google checkout for a one month subscription. I received the confirmation email from Google, but every time I log into VoiceThread, it says it's still processing my credit card information. I would like to begin using this tool with my students.

Jamie Madson
Technology Director
Digital Literacy Instructor
Rockford Schools
madsonj@rockford.k12.mn.us
763-477-5831 ext 2308 (direct)

Jamie,
Processing can take up to 20 minutes to get all credit card verification for the payment from Google. Once that's been completed, you should be all set.

Hello again, I never heard back from anyone regarding my last post, I am a high school teacher in Hawaii and I just got access to a computer lab that I teach out of all day now, so this would be an amazing thing to be able to use with my students. Is there any reason why I would not be permitted to sign up? I tried using my school email to create a different account, but it wouldn't even let me register that one. If I just go ahead and sign up for pro can i get it reimbursed or something? Please let me know, thank you- Eric

Erik,

The monthly classroom subscription last one month from the date of purchase. For instance, if you were to get a one month subscription today, it would be valid until this time next month. Think of it more as a monthly "window". If you have any additional questions, feel free to let us know.

Andrew,
The short answer, yes (naturally, we'd like it to be free for everyone, but we have to make sure we can afford to keep the lights on). =)

The reason I say, short answer, is because within the next few weeks we are going to be rolling out a solution (as we have with K-12 and ed.voicethread.com) specifically geared for higher-ed (and situations like yours) classrooms and institutions. We are working on developing tools that will easily allow professors and technologists at higher-ed institutions manage their institutional access to VoiceThread. Be on the look-out for that soon.

Thanks for your interest in VoiceThread!

I set up an educator account and still had to pay $10.00. In my opinion, that isn't exactly free to educators.

It is not letting me log in under my education account of which I did pay $10.00 for. I'm sitting at my computer at school and having zero luck.
jleggett@molineschools.org
r******

I also a have a free account that I created on my home computer because I do a lot of my work at home in the evenings/weekends:
jleggett@mchsi.com
r******

Jane -
We did in fact receive your email and file. Thanks for sending that to us, definitely helped! We have now pushed a fix for this issue. Please restart your browser and try uploading your problem file(s) again and let us know if that fixed it for you. Thanks again for your help!

Jane -
This issue should now be resolved. Please restart your browser once again and retry. Thanks!

I was again uploading some of my student's essays and adding text and recording comments. After about 5 essays, everything stopped working again. It won't let me type in text or record comments. In fact, those option don't even show up!

I signed out and back in again a few minutes later. Yeah, I can again input text and record. Not sure why it quit working for a while.

Hi I decided to try your ed.voicethread for $10 month. In your description for the educator service it reads that there ar eno limitations in students accounts. Well, my students last visited the lab at the end of march and many of their accounts are still "pending". I have 80 students and I need all of them to be in my class! Please help! We have very important projects coming up using voicethread!

Silvia Straub
Spanish Teacher

I've signed up for a K-12 account, and I am working on several VoiceThreads at my school right now. I have read the FAQs and watched the tutorials and read this forum, but I still have questions:

1. Why are some invitees required to create a user id, but some access the VoiceThread without any such challenge even though they have been invited to the same thread at the same time in the same manner (I sent them an invitation by clicking their thumb in my friends' list and gave them comment rights)?

2. Why do invitees who have only view rights get an invitation telling them that it's easy to add comments even though they can't?

3. What was the $10 for? What can I do now that I couldn't do had I not paid the $10? It's not that the 10 bucks is going to make me or break me, I think what I'm doing now is well worth the $10, but I don't want to be missing out on a feature that I have but don't know about. In an answer about this above, it says "if you want to work in the Ed.VoiceThread network there's a one time $10 verification fee because it's an accountable network where there are no free accounts" but I have absolutely no idea what that means and what benefit it provides.

Thank your for your prompt and helpful reply, Steve. I'll try to digest your answers. One thing I need to consider before I recommend our school (or district) to start a full-blown account is the nature of our student population. I can give you more information off list if it would help, but here's the short version: our school system has a restriction which does not allow posting any student's (or teacher's or parent's) picture, name, and location in one place on a public webserver. It would be ideal for us if anyone in our domain could access our VoiceThreads but no one else. Your one-classroom trial suggestion might be a good idea for the start of SY 08/09 in September.

Okay. I give up. I am not able to find any rhyme or reason some of my invitees are not able to access our voicethreads.