“Good guess, Bingo!” Reinventing microteaching through VoiceThread

This is a guest post by Agi Bodis, Melissa Reed and Yulia Kharchenko, Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney. Three weeks into our TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) postgraduate teacher training program the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown was announced in Australia. As university courses swiftly moved online, we were left with the task to continue the practical microteaching elements of a teaching methodology unit. These typically involved students doing short peer-teaching to develop practical teaching skills. … Continued

Game-Based Learning with VoiceThread- Part 3: The Ultimatum Game

*This is part 3 of our Game-Based learning series. You can check out part 1 and part 2 here.  The Ultimatum Game is popular in Economics and Psychology courses but it can be applied to a variety of different course subjects like History, Math, and Literature. Below, you will see a few examples of how this game can be used in different educational contexts on VoiceThread. How does the game work? … Continued

Game-Based Learning with VoiceThread Part 2: Visual Pop Quiz Games

*This is part 2 of our Game-Based Learning series. You can check out part 1 here: Doodle Games.  In the days before technology empowered educators, the phrase “pop quiz” would instill fear in the hearts of students. Students didn’t like pop quizzes because they didn’t have time to prepare. They were simply assessments, that usually counted toward a student’s grade, and were all anxiety but no fun. This no longer needs to be the case. … Continued

Game-Based Learning with VoiceThread- Part 1: Doodle Games

Game-based learning is one of the most effective ways to get students excited about learning. Educators have been experimenting with games as learning tools for decades, but it isn’t always easy to design games using online tools. VoiceThread is not a gaming platform, but with a little creative lesson planning you can design activities that take advantage of gaming principles. Over the next few weeks, we will be showing different ways you can use these game-based learning principles for a variety of educational tasks. … Continued