Gallery Walk / Carousel With VoiceThread

Hello, and welcome to this Tech-Integrated Strategy. Whether you’re teaching online or in a face-to-face setting, learning in the modern classroom often benefits from the digital mediation of educational activities. 

In this video, we’re going to talk about using the Gallery Walk strategy with VoiceThread.

In this video, you’ll learn how to implement the Gallery Walk instructional strategy using the VoiceThread tech tool.

Gallery Walk is a strategy that provides a way to display multiple students’ work at one time. Students move in a circuit from one work to the next, stopping long enough to learn from each piece.

VoiceThread is a web-based tool that allows a user to create multimedia slide show presentations that others can comment on using audio, video, or text.

In the next video, we’ll go through a step-by-step guide that explains how to set up VoiceThread to facilitate the Gallery Walk strategy.

1. Open VoiceThread (voicethread.com) and select Sign in.

2. You can log in through the “Sign in via institution” button or by using your email, Google, Apple, or Microsoft account.

3. Navigate to the topmost toolbar and select + Create a new VoiceThread.

4. Select Add from computer. Select the item you want to add.

5. The added media should appear in your workspace. Select the vertical kebab menu ( ? ) on the lower-right corner of your uploaded media’s tile.

6. Optionally, select the pencil, arrow, or trash icon in this menu to edit, download, or delete this media.

7. Select Untitled at the top of your workspace to give your VoiceThread a title, description, tags, and cover art.

8. Select Settings at the top of the editing workspace.

9. Under Commenting, select the appropriate comment settings.

10. Because this is a Gallery Walk, be sure to allow comments. You may want to allow only certain types of comments (e.g. allowing microphone, text, and file upload comments, but disallowing webcam comments).

11. Under Playback, keep the Start playing when opened check box checked. Edit other settings as needed.

12. Under Permissions, uncheck the Allow commenters to add slides to this VoiceThread permission box.

13. Keep the Allow others to export check box checked. Edit other settings as needed.

14. In the editing workspace, select + Add Media to add more media. Repeat this process until you have uploaded all of the student work to your VoiceThread.

15. Select Share.

16. Select the link sharing options menu. In the dropdown menu, select Anyone with link can comment.

17. Select Copy link.

18. To share the link with the class, paste this link into a slide deck, LMS, or whatever platform you use to share information with students.

Before you begin facilitating this activity, make sure students have access to the Gallery Walk VoiceThread you created.

Tell students that they will begin the activity with the Gallery Walk slides in the VoiceThread. Students can navigate through the pictures, slides, and text information that their peers created.

Remind them of the work they did and what they’ll be viewing from their peers.

Have students circulate through the work their peers created, stopping at each slide long enough to have an opportunity to learn from and evaluate the work.

Have students leave at least two comments or questions about the presentation using the text option, a voice recording, or a short video.

Once students have completed their circuit, they should turn to the slide that has their work and examine the feedback left for them.

In the next video we’ll discuss use cases to explore more ways you can use Gallery Walk and VoiceThread in your classroom.

The Gallery Walk strategy is best suited for the end of an activity, lesson, or unit of study for students to share products that summarize, reflect on, or synthesize their knowledge of the topic.

For example, if you were teaching a lesson on the effects of the changing carbon cycle, you might have students complete a slide or poster to show what they learned from their reading,

For English language arts, you might have students share their writing in order to receive feedback during the Gallery Walk. 

For math, you might have student groups work to solve a complex problem and create a poster illustration showing how they solved the problem.

Due to the complexity of this strategy, it is ideally suited for upper elementary grades and above with just about any content area.