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Collaborative Learning Tools & Online Teaching

Voicethread

The online teaching tool I chose to examine is Voicethread, which is a commercial application with a limited free trial version for new users. I chose this tool because it is an incredible powerful tool with the potential to change how users, particularly in arenas where visual collabortion is highly desireable, think about and participate in online critiques and portfolio presentations.

There are other online portfolio software packages. Mahara for one, e-Folio for another; but Maraha and its cousins are more useful for creating a transportable, system independent portfolio of work a user or student will maintain over the course of a career or course of study. Voicethread is designed to be collaborative within the structure of class, group, or program.

Voicethread is a true Web 2.0 application in that no part of the software resides on the client computer. Access is via log in, and all projects are stores online. There is the option, for paying users, to download the finished Voicethreads as Quicktime movies. A handy feature for archiving and use in a DVD or CD based portfolio.

The target audience for this lesson is a university level documentary photojournalism class. These students a junior level students with at least two photography courses completed in order to enroll.

Script:

Welcome to week three. This week, we're going to discuss portraiture and it's role in photojournalism. In particular, we will examine the environmental portrait as a tool for the photojournalist.

What is a portrait? By definition, a portrait is a likeness of a person, especially of the face; as a painting, sculpture, drawing, or photograph. The art of portraiture is centuries old, while the medium of photography has existed for only a little over one hundred years.

In that relatively short span, the portrait has evolved dramatically. A portrait can take many forms, ranging from a close up image of the face of a single individual, without any context at all; to photographs that reveal the depth and nuances of a person.

In today's world of editorial imagery, the portrait has evolved into something far more complex and telling than every before. For the photojournalist, the goal is to tell a story with every picture, and portraits offer the opportunity to reveal far more about someone than just what they look like.

Enter the environmental portrait. The environmental portrait takes the subject and places him or her in a context which adds meaning and depth to their identity. Ideally, the addition of a context to the image adds news value; or, relevance, to the picture and story as well.

As a story teller, it is the duty of the journalist to reveal the truth of a subject. As a visual story tellers, photojournalists do this with pictures. Each person, placed in a definitive context, is revealing a truth about who they are and what is important to them.

As we move from picture to picture, from one image to the next, what is it that you come to know about each subject, without a single word of narration? There are no captions on these pictures. no verbal clues to the identities of the subject. No credits, so even the name of the photographer is, for the moment, unknown. and yet, so much is revealed.

Professions, passions, accomplishments, and emotions... all come into play in the environmental portrait. As you look at each image in turn, think about what you know about each subject. What is revealed, and what remains hidden?

It is up to you, as photojournalists, to learn to place this powerful tool in your story telling arsenal.