VoiceThread as a Way to Create Community in Online Learning

South Alabama Conference on Teaching & Learning

Dr. Peggy DelmasMay 12, 2015

Blended & fully online learningAs of 2012: the proportion of all students taking at least one online course

was at an all-time high of 32% 69.1% of chief academic officers believed that online learning

was critical to the long term strategy of their institutions 62.4% of higher education institutions offered fully online

programs (Allen & Seaman, 2013)

Barriers to persistence in distance education include: Auditory learning style (Harrell & Bower, 2011) Decreased engagement (Morris, Finnigan, & Wu, 2005;

Ivankova & Stick, 2007) Isolation (Bunn, 2004; McInnerney & Roberts, 2004)

COI framework

Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2010

a model for understanding interactions and social integration in online environments

Community the connections among students and between

students and instructors that can lead to increased learning (Young & Bruce, 2011)

the essence of distance learning (Palloff & Pratt, 1999)

elements of community: people shared purpose guidelines technology collaborative learning reflective practice social presence (Palloff & Pratt, 1999, 2003, 2005)

VoiceThread

Higher Ed Single Instructor License $99/yr. Instructor + 50 student accts.

K-12 Single Educator License $79/yr. or $15/mo. Instructor + 50 student accts.

VT applications – Student introductions

VT applications – Student introductions

Student response to VT “After the conference, I went home to continue working on my VoiceThread activity. This activity was a wonderful way for the classmates to get to know each other before the first evening of class.” – D.

“I can remember as an undergraduate and graduate student that the first class meeting was always a little awkward. Walking into a room of strangers usually resulted in a quiet room and fleeting glances. Tonight was different. Thanks to Dr. D.’s assignment of building the voice thread before class, I walked into a room of laughter, familiar faces, and friends.” – L.

“I truly enjoyed reviewing and commenting on all the voice threads. It was nice to see and hear the thoughts, accomplishments, desires, and families of all the cohorts. It made a difference in how I will interact with everyone. I have a lot in common with most of the cohort that we can discuss, and this will help in building/establishing genuine relationships.” - T

Research on Use of VT Easy to use (Borup, Graham, & Velasquez, 2010; Ching &

Hsu, 2013) Access issue- internet, microphone/telephone/mobile

phone, microphone required (Smith, 2012) Allows sharing of voice (Borup, Graham, & Velasquez,

2010); Helps understand nuance through voice (Pacansky-Brock, 2010)

Not embedded in course LMS (Ching & Hsu, 2013) Helps make collaboration more engaging by emulating f2f

interaction (Ching & Hsu, 2013) Assessment can be time consuming – no tracking

mechanism for student contributions (Ching & Hsu, 2013) Creates wait time for students to formulate thoughts

(Brunvand & Byrd, 2011)

Research on Use of VT Helps mitigate shyness (Orlando & Orlando, 2010) Fosters social presence (Orlando & Orlando, 2010;

Pacansky-Brock, 2010) Does not help students to get to know classmates

(Borup, Graham, & Velasquez, 2010) Enhances sense of community (Kidd, 2013; Kidd &

Beaudry, 2013; Orlando & Orlando, 2010; Pacansky-Brock, 2010)

Does not significantly increase online social community (Millard, 2010; Taylor & Huang, 2011)

Increases teaching presence (Taylor & Huang, 2011) Increases student connection with instructor (Borup,

Graham, & Velasquez, 2010; Kidd & Beaudry, 2013)

Questionnaire Research (n = 28)

Gender Female = 64.3% Male = 35.7%

Used VT in a blended class – 46.5%

Used VT in a fully online class – 67.9%

Most Recent College Status Master’s degree program

= 58.6% Doctoral degree program

= 41.4%

Race/Ethnicity Black/African American =

35.7% White/Caucasian = 57.1% Other = 7.1%

VT helps to create a sense of community among online learners

strongly disagree

somewhat disagree

somewhat agree

strongly agree

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

44.8%

55.2%

VT helps me feel more connected to my classmates

Somewhat agreeStrongly agree

42.9%57.1%

VT helps me feel more connected to my instructor

Somewhat disagreeSomewhat agreeStrongly agree

3.6%

50%

46.4%

VT helps me to get to know my classmates better

Somewhat disagreeSomewhat agreeStrongly agree

3.6%

60.7%

35.7%

VT helps me to get to know my instructor better

Somewhat disagreeSomewhat agreeStrongly agree

3.7%

51.9%

44.4%

I would want to use VT in a future class

Strongly disagree

Somewhat disagree

Somewhat agree

Strongly agree

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

7.1%

53.6%

39.3%

Resources www.voicethread.com http://

www.teachingwithoutwalls.com/p/voicethread.html

References Allen, I.E. & Seaman, J. (2013). Changing courses: Ten years of tracking online

education in the United States. Babson Park, MA: Babson Survey Research Group and Quahog Research Group. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED541571.pdf

Borup, J., Graham, C.R. & Velasquez, A. (2010). The Use of Asynchronous Video Communication to Improve Instructor Immediacy and Social Presence in an Online Course. In D. Gibson & B. Dodge (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2010 (pp. 337-344). Chesapeake, VA: Association for t he Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved May 8, 2015 from http://www.editlib.org/p/33358

Brunvand, S., & Byrd, S. (2011). Using VoiceThread to promote learning engagement and success for all students. Teaching Exceptional Children, 43(4), 28-37.

Bunn, J. (2004) Student persistence in a LIS distance education program. Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 35:3, 253-269, DOI: 10.1080/00048623.2004.10755275

Ching, Y.-H., & Hsu, Y.-C. (2013). Collaborative learning using VoiceThread in an online graduate course. Knowledge Management & E-Learning, 5(3), 298-314.

Garrison, D.R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2010). The first decade of the community of inquiry framework: A retrospective. Internet and Higher Education, 13, 5-9.

References Harrell, I.L., & Bower, B.L. (2011). Student characteristics that predict student

persistence in community college online courses. American Journal of Distance Education, 25(3), 178- 191.

Ivankova, N. V., & Stick, S. L. (2007). Students’ persistence in a distributed doctoral program in educational leadership in higher education: A mixed methods study. Research in Higher Education, 48(1), 93-135. doi:10.1007/s11162-006-9025-4

Kidd, J. (2013). Evaluating VoiceThread for Online Content Delivery and Student Interaction: Effects on Classroom Community. In R. McBride & M. Searson (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2013 (pp. 2158-2162). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved May 8, 2015 from http://www.editlib.org/p/48425.

Kidd, J. & Beaudry, J. (2013). Understanding Students’ Online Communication Preferences and the Affordances of VoiceThread for Formative Assessment in Online Teaching. In R. McBride & M. Searson (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2013 (pp. 2163-2170). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved May 8, 2015 from http://www.editlib.org/p/48426.

McInnerney, J. M., & Roberts, T. S. (2004). Online learning: Social interaction and the creation of a sense of community. Educational Technology & Society, 7 (3), 73-81.

References Millard, M. (2010). Analysis of interaction in an asynchronous CMC

environment. Proceedings of Web Science Conference 2010. Retrieved from http://journal.webscience.org/391/2/websci10_submission_106.pdf

Morris, L. V., Finnegan, C., & Wu, S. (2005). Tracking student behavior, persistence, and achievement in online courses. The Internet and Higher Education, 8(3), 221-231.

Orlando, J., & Orlando, L. (2010). Using VoiceThread to improve educational outcomes. In Proceedings of the 27th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning. Madison, WI: The Board of the University of Wisconsin System. Retrieved from http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/Resource_library/proceedings/28642_10.pdf

Pacansky-Brock, M. (2010). VoiceThread: Enhanced community, increased social presence and improved visual learning. Retrieved from http://olc.onlinelearningconsortium.org/effective_practices/voicethread-enhanced-

community-increased-social-presence-and-improved-visual-lea Palloff, R.M. & Pratt, K. (1999). Building learning communities in cyberspace:

Effective strategies for the online classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

References Palloff, R.M. & Pratt, K. (2003). The virtual student: A profile and guide to

working with online learners. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Palloff, R.M. & Pratt, K. (2005). Collaborating online: Learning together in

community. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Smith, J. (2012). Facilitating Enhanced Self, Peer and Instructor-Centered

Performance Assessment with VoiceThread. In P. Resta (Ed.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2012 (pp. 3075-3080). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved May 8, 2015 from http://www.editlib.org/p/40061.

Taylor, L. & Huang, H.W. (2011). Student Engagement in Online Multimedia Communication. In M. Koehler & P. Mishra (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2011 (pp. 786-788). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved May 8, 2015

fromhttp://www.editlib.org/p/36372.) Young, S. & Bruce, M.A. (2011). Classroom community and student

engagement in online courses. Journal of Online Teaching, 7(2), 219-230.