Research Category: Higher Ed

A sense of belonging to a learning community has been identified as one of the factors contributing to greater student satisfaction and persistence in online education pro-grams. Using the community of inquiry framework as a theoretical guide, the purpose of this study was to explore the role of VoiceThread, a web-based platform that facilitates cloud communication, in creating a sense of community for U.S. adult learners in the online environment. This study surveyed 39 students in a College of Education fully online master’s program and in a blended doctoral program regarding their experiences using VoiceThread in their courses. Results indicate that students perceive VoiceThread positively in the creation of online community. Students reported feeling more connected their classmates due to the tool’s ability to add voice to online activities. Students also felt more connected to their instructor due to VoiceThread’s ability to humanize, or make the instructor seem real.

The movement to advance the clinical nurse leader (CNL) as an innovative new role for meeting higher health care quality standards continues with CNL programs offered on-line at colleges and universities nationwide. Collaborative learning activities offer the opportunity for CNL students to gain experience in working together in small groups to negotiate and solve care process problems. The challenge for nurse educators is to provide collaborative learning activities in an asynchronous learning environment that can be considered isolating by default. This article reports on the experiences of 17 CNL students who used VoiceThread, a cloud-based tool that allowed them to communicate asynchronously with one another through voice comments for collaboration and sharing knowledge. Participants identified benefits and drawbacks to using VoiceThread for collaboration as compared to text-based discussion boards. Students reported that the ability to hear the voice of their peers and the instructor helped them feel like they were in a classroom communicating with “real” instructor and peers. Students indicated a preference for on-line classes that used VoiceThread discussions to on-line classes that used only text-based discussion boards.

VoiceThread is an innovative platform gaining popularity in online education. Use of the video comment feature has the ability to foster inclusiveness and engagement for students in online nursing programs. This technology can also serve to enrich the distance learning experience for students with varying learning styles.

This article explores VoiceThread as an online tool for supporting literacy and Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) within the top three levels of the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy.  VoiceThread is a collaborative Web 2.0 tool allowing users to create, share, and comment on images, documents, and videos.  Readers are first provided with an overview of VoiceThread followed by curriculum opportunities for using VoiceThread to analyze, evaluate, and create.

In today’s digital world, Extension professionals are using a wide variety of tools to gather feedback and data from program participants and stakeholders (Rowntree, Wittman, Lindquist, & Raven, 2013). Through online asynchronous discussion boards, chat rooms, and even online live synchronous discussions, the Internet has changed the manner of qualitative data collection forever (Stancanelli, 2010). VoiceThread (http://voicethread.com) is a multimedia platform used by primary and secondary school educators around the world as a storytelling and collaborative tool that also offers promise as a tool for qualitative program evaluation. The unique features of VoiceThread provide a rich backdrop for conducting virtual focus group interviews.

This case study presents how VoiceThread, an online application used to create multimedia presentations and conversations, was used to enable first year students to give and receive feedback. In the process, the presentation skills of the student are enhanced.