A university colleague and I recently spent time reflecting on how a local rural middle school teacher with whom we collaborated sought to shift her literacy instruction from less teacher-directed to more student-centered learning. Key in this transformation was the development of digital book projects by groups of students who had already read and discussed novels within small group literature circles. This was a quantum leap for students who had never imagined sharing or posting their thoughts and ideas online. Because this teacher and her students had no prior experience with collaborative digital composition tools, we suggested the use of VoiceThread for their maiden voyage. This Web 2.0 slide show tool allowed these students to feature text, images, or videos, and add written, audio, or sketched comments about archived content.

As in many rural school settings, this particular teacher had little tech support and no funding devoted to her new venture, so the recommendations we offered were chosen carefully. My colleague and I had both experienced past success with facilitating collaborative digital projects via the free version of VoiceThread in our own university teaching with students who were often novices with such technology tools. The middle school teacher we advised encountered similar success as students navigated VoiceThread’s features. Indeed, while she guided her middle-schoolers in the areas of digital image location and transfer, creation of PowerPoint slides, and then with initial uploading of their creations to VoiceThread, the students added self-scripted audio commentary to their book project content with surprising ease, enthusiasm, and excitement. While their final projects might seem simple and quite unsophisticated when judged by standards of seasoned gurus, students’ teachers, parents, and administrators in this rural setting were surprised and impressed at the outcomes shared on the big screen during a celebration of students’ efforts.

While reflecting on this digital book project experience, and particularly about our VoiceThread recommendation, we learned of other educators who had experienced success with even more challenging and diverse populations. Stein Brunvand and Sara Byrd of the University of Michigan-Dearborn highlighted multiple positive outcomes from integrating VoiceThread in learning experiences for special needs students. Identified benefits mirror many of our conclusions about usage with our rural middle-schoolers, including VoiceThread’s propensity for:

• Engaging students actively in meaning-making, including creation of content and the archiving of iterative commentary among multiple learners
• Supporting student creation and revision of archived digital projects from classrooms, computer labs, and/or any Internet-equipped setting
• Employing a simple core of technical skills that, once learned, can be used over and over again to communicate information and ideas across multiple content areas for a broad range of purposes.

Teachers Stein Brunvand and Sara Byrd further illustrated their success with VoiceThread through student profiles of three different learners whose challenges ranged from specific learning disabilities to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

In the midst of a global digital environment where Web 2.0 tools are commonplace and arrays of technology are at the disposal of some, microcosms exist where the use or existence of such technology is either not imagined, nor considered for students or within schools with a variety of needs or challenges. The use of free or low-cost, easy to navigate technology tools that offer the potential for a high degree of student success can open doors to virtual worlds for students who might otherwise remain unaware. VoiceThread is one such digital tool whose basics are straightforward and new features are cutting-edge, providing possibilities for collaborative multimodal digital learning experiences for all.

Terry S. Atkinson is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at East Carolina University, Greenville, NC.

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association’s Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).