Over the next few weeks I’m going to share some of my favorite digital storytelling ideas. I will highlight different applications and Web 2.0 sites that the students and I have been successful. To start with, I want to share how I use Voicethread.com. This is Part 1 which covers the necessary yet not very exciting process of signing up for student accounts.

Voicethread is a great way to bring digital storytelling into your curriculum. Whether you have one computer in your classroom or a computer for every student, you can create a voicethread. I have used voicethread in grades as young as pre-k! In its simplest form, voicethread is a digital slide show, not unlike PowerPoint. Used more creatively, it is a wonderful asynchronous collaboration tool where your students and anyone else you invite, can create a wonderful story.

Let’s look at a specific example of how to use it in your class. In this example, I will highlight the steps used to create a voicethread with a 4th grade class but you can adapt it to fit almost any grade.

In Social Studies, our 4th graders are studying Texas history. We will obviously be using voicethread so I needed to do some work before the project started. The main task I need to take care of before class started was creating accounts for the students. I never have kids go through the account sign-up procedure for any site because: 1. it takes forever and wastes precious time, and 2. younger kids do not have an e-mail account and I certainly don’t want them to using their personal information anyway.

To create accounts for my students, I signed up for an education account. To be able to create class lists and manage your students’ accounts, you have to sign up for a Class Subscription which is $60 per year. Well worth it in my opinion. Then, I uploaded an excel file to create my student accounts.

If you don’t want to spend the $60, here’s what to do…just remember, if you only want free accounts, you will not be able to manage your student users. To create multiple free accounts for a Web 2.0 site, use the “Gmail Trick”.

Gmail Trick:

The “Gmail Trick” is such a useful way to sign up for multiple student accounts that everyone should know how to do this.

1. Sign up for gmail. Create an account that is meaningful to your class and easy for kids to type (i.e. yourschool.math). Make sure you can access gmail from school. You may have to beg your network administrator to unblock it for you.
2. Go to the website of your choice, in this case voicethread.com, and sign up for accounts like this:
Email: yourschool.math+1@gmail.com
Use a common password like the school mascot.
The “+1” is a variable. All of the e-mail sent to this account goes to your main gmail inbox.
3. Repeat this procedure but change the “+1” to “+2”. Keep signing up for accounts until you have the amount you need. I commonly go through this procedure up to “+25”.
4. Check your Gmail. You may have to verify the accounts by clicking on a link in the e-mails.

Now you know how to create your student accounts in voicethread and any other Web 2.0 site. In my next post, I will go step by step through this lesson. Let me know if you have any questions so far.