Voicethread Subscription Makes Great Holiday Gift for Families, Teachers and Parent Advocates

Voicethread is a subscription that can support networking and connectivity for advocacy or for fun inter-family communication and sharing...Imagine being given a year subscription to a service that allows unlimited Voice (microphone) and text commenting, Images, docs and videos, Doodling, Embedding, Moderation, Identities, Sharing up online AND the ability to have unlimited voice threads (or recorded comments) about the above media posted by friends, family or colleagues online. I think it is wonderful. The free version gives you 3 free voicethreads, where the $59.95 a year pro version gives you unlimited.
Here's a little story to illustrate how it works:
We were at a friends house for dinner yesterday and our hostess told at dinner how she had been working with an elementary teacher that day, helping get student-drawn pictures for Christmas with comments done, scanned and in a Powerpoint. They found that the the writing of the words each student would do with their picture would take up too much room on a PowerPoint slide, so they decided to record the students voices reading the text on the slides.Then they had a thought...if they dumped the pictures into a Powerpoint as a slide show from My Pictures, and then uploaded it online to Voicethread, it would be there for each student to comment on and tell about their individual pictures and then be there to share later as well.
Once you post a family video, a photo album, etc. and send the link to family and friends, they can go online and as they play the video or slideshow, they can record comments, actually write and doodle on the image, and use it to moderate discussions or do an analyisis of a topic.
I can see all kinds of potential in this for parents who are sharing videos of children with family members, maybe wanting an assessment from a specialist who is too far away to come visit personally, share school projects and assignments,etc.
You can watch different samples of what they do with Voicethread on the site. If you are looking for a unique and fun gift for someone who is really into online networking and communications, this could be a really great gift. Here is a breakdown on the difference between the free and paid versions. PricingBrowse what it can do HERE.There is an educational version designed for the classroom as well.
All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!