Student Engagement in Online Multimedia Communication
Abstract: This study used and evaluated VoiceThread, a new Web 2.0 multimedia communication tool during an online research course. VoiceThread is a web-based asynchronous multimedia presentation tool designed to facilitate online conversations via multimedia. One can post comments using a microphone, telephone, text, uploaded audio file, or video. This is an asynchronous way to facilitate student interaction and collaboration with the professor monitoring. This course required three assignments using VoiceThread. VoiceThread interactions were analyzed to identify if there was a preference in the medium students chose to use to communicate (text, voice, video) along with student interaction and addressivity. The effectiveness of VoiceThread was also measured by the Community of Inquiry Model in respects to Teaching Presence, Cognitive Presence and Social Presence.