VoiceThread as a Tool to Support Engagement in Online Business Courses
Glori Hinck
University of St. Thomas
Nancy McGinley Meyers
University of St. Thomas
Keywords: voicethread, engagement, business, discussion board
Abstract
Our faculty are encouraged to move traditional face-to-face MBA courses into a blended format. One concern with this change is how to engage students in robust discussions of business cases. The typical online discussion forum can support teaching with cases to a degree, but in a text-only medium, there is a loss of presence. VoiceThread is an asynchronous tool that allows students to engage not only with the case content, but also with peers and instructor through their choice of modalities including text, audio, and video. We will outline the steps involved in moving a case discussion from the classroom to the cloud and will suggest ways to implement VoiceThread into a blended business course.
Objectives:
- Recognize the capabilities of VoiceThread for asynchronous interaction
- Describe how VoiceThread can be used to support case-method teaching in a business course
- Identify advantages of using VoiceThread over text-only asynchronous discussions.
Author Biography
Glori Hinck, University of St. Thomas
Glori Hinck MS, MET, DC is the Instructional Designer for the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas. She holds a Master's degree in Educational Technology from Boise State University where she is currently pursuing an EdD in Educational Technology with a dissertation topic of quality assurance in online MBA programs.
