This is a great StAIR to introduce Voicethread. You covered the basic concepts and provided interactive features in your presentation to keep the learner engaged. You definitely have conformed to the Universal Design of Learning (UDL) approach in your instruction. There were minor suggestions that I would like to comment on. If it is possible, have the audio volume level for both feedback and voiceover be almost equal. It was so neat to have an option to listen to your instructions as I go through the slides, but when I hit the wrong answer, the feedback was substantially louder than your voice, which made me jump while reviewing it at 4:00 am. Another is the format consistency in using the action buttons. There were some buttons which I was assuming were linked to a page or an action, but were really button images being described in the page.

I really liked your presentation on voice threads and thought it was well laid out and organized. I thought you used many of the UDL principles and used both inductive and deductive learning styles. The material was presented in many formats including words, pictures, and audio for each slide. I thought the diagrams and audio did a great job clarifying many of the concepts and helped the learner understand the presentation more clearly. One area that I thought could be done differently, not necessarily better, would be the questions asked to engage the learner. I thought that most of the questions were based on either guessing or prior knowledge of the material. I would at least include some questions that tested what you taught to check their understanding of the material and ensure they are comfortable to try their own voice thread. The other area I would adjust would be to include the back button at more spots in the presentation so the learner can go back and see the question even if they guessed correctly. I also really liked how you offered feedback to any learner who would like to create their own thread. That is an excellent way to get authentic feedback. I worked on the presentation and write up for 40 minutes.

Sincerely,

Ethan Fahy

Nice job Colin. This will be a helpful lesson to everyone.