Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

FREE online resources and downloadable programs for learners and their teachers.

VoiceThread has been my favourite digital story-telling application since it first appeared earlier this year. That’s mainly because it’s so easy to either speak or write about images, and then share it all. This not only makes VoiceThread versatile, it also makes it accessible to individuals who face challenges with writing. The potential uses of VoiceThread by learners and teachers are unlimited.

Now they’ve made VoiceThread even better! This week, the VoiceThread team has introduced a “Pro” version that they are making available to K-12 educators free of charge. (While a powerful free version will continue to be available, at less than $2.50/month the Pro features are a bargain for anyone who is not an educator!)

I haven’t yet had a chance to try them all out, but here are just some of the new Pro features:

• the animated “Doodler” offers the ability to draw on an image while commenting;
• multiple identities for one registered user–excellent for classes or groups of students;
• expanded media uploading options–jpg, gif, bmp, png, ppt, pps, pdf, doc, xls, also directly from Flickr or Facebook;
• comment moderation;
• easier sharing and embedding options;
• enhanced ability to enlarge and project VoiceThreads on a large screen.

You need to go to VoiceThread and see for yourself, but I’ve embedded a couple of threads below that I think illustrate at least a little of VoiceThread’s potential–one done by a grade 5 class and the other from grade 1.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=7896" width="480" height="360" wmode="transparent" /]

[kml_flashembed movie="http://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=10355" width="480" height="360" wmode="transparent" /]