Once students have formatted their evaluation of the book, it is time to plan out the desired slides within the VoiceThread presentation. VoiceThread permits students to upload a variety of file types for documents, images, presentations, and videos—allowing students to become multimodal designers of content through technology (Dalton, 2013). Have students organize presentation slides along with accompanying text using a storyboard template such as the example from freeology.com shown in Figure 5. Using this template, students can design their presentation integrating media such as book covers, video clips, and text selections. Students can include drawn illustrations, online images, or digital images created from sketching apps such as Doodle Buddy available from iTunes or Kids Doodle available from GooglePlay. Students could work collaboratively to share a discussion, or for something straightforward, students might limit the review to one VoiceThread slide containing only the book’s cover. For suggested ways to organized book reviews within VoiceThread, see Table 3.
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Online Classroom Book Club Review
Online Classroom Book Club Discussion
Class Book Log
Individual Book Log
Multimodal Book Review
Slide is uploaded with book cover. Students evaluate the book by sharing a book review. Viewers are encouraged to comment.
Stopping points within the text are uploaded (i.e. by chapter sections). Students engage in book club discussions to evaluate the book within designated stopping points.
Slides are uploaded with book covers (one slide per book cover). Students who have read the book provide a book review. Viewers are encouraged to comment.
Each student creates an ongoing VoiceThread. Slides are added for each book read along with the student’s book review. Viewers are encouraged to comment.
Individually or in groups, students create a multimodal book review, which may include images, media, text selections, and digital illustrations. Viewers are encouraged to comment.
Figure 5: Storyboard template with six boxes
Table 3: Sample VoiceThread Book Review Set-Up
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