Adding A VoiceThread To Your Blackboard Course
Using VoiceThread in your courses allows you to interact and engage with your students with audio, visual, and video elements. VoiceThread is embedded within the University's course management system, Blackboard. VoiceThreads can be used to share lectures, videos, or other instructor-created material or content. It can also be used to collect student assignments or interactions.
VoiceThread recently updated the Assignment Builder features. Find more information about those updates here.
If you prefer to watch the information presented below, this video will take you through the steps.
Creating the Blackboard Link
Sign into Blackboard and go to the course you’re currently working on.
Navigate to the content area or content folder where you want the VoiceThread to live.
Go to Build Content in the menu and select VoiceThread, this should take you to VoiceThread to create your link.
You'll choose between:
Individual VoiceThread (usually used for instructor-created lecture content), VT Home Page (doesn't get used often as this takes users to the VoiceThread homepage), or Course View (provides a gallery view of the VoiceThreads created in the course)
Assignment Builder (this is where you can build a watch, comment, or create assignments).
Individual VoiceThreads
For Individual VoiceThreads: you can choose to either Create a New VoiceThread or Select an Existing VoiceThread.
Using an Existing VoiceThread
If you're okay using the existing VoiceThread as is (all comments by you and/or anyone else will move over), select the VoiceThread and select Continue.
If you want to make a copy and edit the VoiceThread, find the VoiceThread you want to use and then select the three vertical dots and select Copy. You can then re-name the VoiceThread as well as decide which comments you want to copy. Consider that if previous students commented on the VoiceThread, you wouldn't want to choose to Include All Comments. Click Copy. Click Continue.
On the next page, you can edit the slides and or add additional media. Click Continue
On this page, you can see the VoiceThread and add any additional comments, click Continue
Add an Activity Name. This is what will show in Blackboard. Click Publish.
Your new link will be at the bottom of the Blackboard page.
Create a New VoiceThread
If you want to create a new VoiceThread, click in the top right of the screen to Create new VoiceThread.
Add your files (this is the content that appears in the background. It could be a PDF, a presentation, an image, etc.
Add a title in the top left where it says Untitled and click Continue
If you're using a file that has multiple pages, the individual pages should upload as individual slides.
You can now add comments by clicking on the plus icon in the center of the screen.
You can choose between text, audio, video, uploading, or calling in comments.
Select the type of comment you want to add.
For Voice and video recording, you get the option to use a pencil to draw on your comment.
When you're done, click Stop Recording, or if you're typing a comment, click save.
For Voice and video comments, you have a few options:
Cancel: you don't want to save your comment
Save: you want to save your comment
Record More: your comment is added to your VoiceThread and you can then record additional comments.
Once you've added all of your comments, click Continue in the bottom left.
Add an Activity Name. This is the name that will show in Blackboard. Click Publish in the bottom left.
The link is now added to the bottom of your content page.
Creating Assignment VoiceThreads
For Assignment VoiceThreads, follow the steps in these documentation videos from VoiceThread. After you create your assignment, you'll need to go back into the assignment via the edit options to update the points associated with the assignment. Prefer to watch the instructions? Check out our documentation video.
Issues With VoiceThread in Brightspace?
If you're having issues with VoiceThread loading properly, try these steps:
Make sure your browser is updated to the latest version
Be sure that you've enable VoiceThread cookies in the browser
Clear the browser cache for "All time"
For Chrome: here's the instructions
For Firefox: here's the instructions