VoiceThread can be a powerful tool for formative assessment in educational contexts, allowing educators to gather feedback on students' learning and understanding in a dynamic and interactive way. Its multimedia capabilities provide unique opportunities for assessing student learning beyond traditional methods. Here are several ways VoiceThread can be utilised for formative assessment more broadly:

1. Student Presentations and Projects
   • Students can create and share presentations or projects on VoiceThread, demonstrating their understanding of course material. Teachers can assess comprehension and provide direct, personalised feedback through comments, highlighting strengths and areas for improvement.
2. Reflections and Journals
   • VoiceThread can be used for reflective journals where students discuss what they have learned, questions they still have, or connections they've made with the material. This encourages metacognition and allows instructors to gauge students’ depth of understanding.
3. Discussion and Analysis
   • By facilitating discussions around specific content, such as a piece of art, a historical document, or a scientific study, teachers can assess students' analytical skills and their ability to apply critical thinking. These discussions can reveal students’ thought processes and misconceptions.
4. Peer Reviews
   • Students can review and critique each other’s work on VoiceThread, offering constructive feedback. This not only helps in developing critical evaluation skills but also allows students to learn from each other, providing a broader range of perspectives.
5. Demonstrations of Skills
   • For courses that involve practical skills or techniques, such as language learning, music, or physical education, students can upload videos of themselves demonstrating these skills. Teachers can then assess proficiency and offer feedback or demonstrations to improve their skills.
6. Interactive Quizzes and Assessments
   • Educators can create interactive quizzes or assessments where students respond to questions directly on VoiceThread. This can include solving a problem, explaining a concept in their own words, or defending an argument, offering insights into their understanding and mastery of the content.
7. Group Projects
   • VoiceThread facilitates collaboration on group projects, allowing members to contribute individually and collectively. Teachers can assess not only the final product but also the collaboration and communication process among students.
8. Integration with Instructional Strategies
   • Scaffold Learning: Use VoiceThread to build on previous knowledge, gradually increasing the complexity of tasks and assessments.
   • Differentiate Instruction: Offer various types of assessments to cater to different learning styles and abilities, utilising VoiceThread’s versatility in supporting text, audio, and video feedback.
   • Prompt Self-assessment and Goal Setting: Encourage students to use VoiceThread to set learning goals and self-assess their progress towards these goals, fostering a growth mindset.

Incorporating VoiceThread for formative assessment not only enriches the learning experience by making it more interactive and engaging but also provides educators with a multifaceted view of student understanding, enabling timely and effective feedback to support continuous learning.

Creating a Formative VoiceThread task

1. In your unit site, under the relevant module in the content area, hover over the menu bar at the "Build Content" menu and choose "Add VoiceThread":
   
2. Title the item but do not "Enable Evaluation" under the "Grading" heading.
3. All settings are default, and then click "Submit" in the bottom-right corner.
4. Now you will see a VoiceThread link titled as above - click this to open VoiceThread and begin setting up the task.

Setting up the details for the task

1. Choose the top option "Individual VoiceThread" and you will automatically be brought to the next page:
   
2. Click "Create a new VoiceThread" from the top-right corner of your screen:
   
3. Here you can choose to add media from your computer or even to use VoiceThread (to record new media or use existing media from your VoiceThread account):
   

Instruct you students to leave comments using text, audio, video, or via an upload. Encourage them to engage with each other's responses. Follow-up with these in the upcoming Workshop or Tutorials.

Once you have finished preparing the slide where students will respond, click the "Continue" button in the bottom-left.

The default settings on the following page should be fine, but feel free to tweak as per your needs.

When finished, click the "Publish" button in the bottom-left, and you should see a "Success!" notification after which you can close the tab in your browser.

The VoiceThread link is now live, and students can click to view and participate.