Affordance of Educational Technology Article Reflection

     The article Evaluating Pedagogical Affordances of Media Sharing Web 2.0 Technologies by Kevin Burden and Simon Atkinson gave a good explanation of the uses of Voice Thread and its affordability.  I am familiar with Voice Thread and believe it is a valuable tool for the classroom.  One of the best benefits of this tool is that is free.  Often many resources or tools require a significant amount of money and training in order to implement them in the classroom.  Voice Thread is not only affordable but also very user friendly.  The article discusses how the use of the tool was implemented to aide in learner’s ability to reflect, discuss, and review peers work.  I believe this is an essential component to using Voice Thread.  It allows students and/or colleagues to reflect, respond, and discuss the content of the Voice Thread.  This opens a door for active collaboration and learning to occur.  An additional positive aspect to this is that you are using technology in the process.  This allows many NETS standards to be addressed in the process of learning the content. 
     The article also addresses how versatile Voice Thread is.  It can be used with many different forms of media.  For example, the article states, “The media under discussion can be almost anything ranging from still images, video clips, presentations, audio files, documents or any combination of these.”  This aspect of the tool allows for many different ways of using it inside or outside of the classroom.  A Voice Thread can be created by a teacher on any topic in any content area using many types of media.  Additionally, students can create them and comment on their peers or teachers work.  A good example of this is that, Voice Threads can be used to re-teach a concept that was taught in class that day.  It can be posted on the teacher’s websites and students can comment or ask questions while at home.  Overall, the fact that Voice Thread is so versatile and can be used with many forms of media allows a large range of learning opportunities to occur while it is utilized.  
     The article discusses how the tool and other tools cannot be used on their own to meet Dial-e’s matrix.  The tool needs to be used with good planning, creativity, and imagination.  I liked how the article discussed this.  I feel that all materials or tools that are going to be used in the classroom require these essential components.  It is an affordable tool but in order to use it to its full capability it requires thought and time.  All lessons should be created and designed that way.  This tool is very valuable and affordable.  It is definitely worth getting comfortable using and having your students use.