Threaded Audio Discussions

Discussions are great educational activities. There’s nothing like a rousing discussion to help students learn about different perspectives on a topic, reflect on their learning, and just generally share information and build community. However, not all students really like the text-based threaded discussions we normally use in our classes: some students are uncomfortable writing for an audience and some just don’t find all that text very appealing.

Fortunately, some new web services out there allow you to easily create threaded VOICE discussions. These services are similar to text-based discussion forums, but instead of typing your post or your reply, you record it! And then, instead of reading all those posts, you simply listen - either at the site or in your favorite RSS Reader (my current favorite is Google Reader because it handles text, audio, and video feeds).

Of course, if you’ve been reading any of the posts in this blog, you know I have a preference for Web 2.0 services rather than software that you have to download. So, I was very happy to find Vaestro. This online service lets you listen to and participate in hundreds of different conversations going on in the Vaestro community… all without even creating an account or downloading anything to your computer! You can also create your own channels, forums, and discussion topics and administer them just as you would any text-based forum. So, go check it out. I think you’ll like it. Or, watch my vaestro overview, administration, and moderation tutorials. They’re not perfect, but they do get the point across.

When I have used this tool more, I will post a more extensive review.

Time to “swing your chin”

While not my most favorite web 2.0 name this year, Chinswing seems appropriately named. But, I digress. This little tool lets you hold asynchronous voice conversations. Yep, you read me correctly: You create a discussion by recording a message, then someone else can come along and record a message back to you. It’s simple to use and quite fun, too. Check it out by creating a free account at Chinswing and then posting a comment to my discussion about educational uses of Chinswing.

Oooh… I forgot to mention - you can subscribe to the RSS feed and have the conversation delivered to your iTunes (or get a notice in your email). Pretty neat.