Tell me a Story: Narrated Online Collections with VoiceThread

I try not to focus too heavily on web tools on this blog, but this application is too lovely to pass up. It's called VoiceThread, and it's a program that allows you to create an elegant slideshow of images with audio (and text, and scribbles) to go along. You can use it to create your own narrative experience, and you can also allow other users to comment on and add their own commentary to the images.

A quick browse reveals people who are using VoiceThread to:

• invite kids to share stories of life as refugees
• create collaborative student projects
• run bizarre and wonderful love advice call-in shows
• layer family photo collections with oral histories and commentaries

And you could easily use it to:

• create how-to or "making of" presentations on any museum content or exhibit
• integrate artists'/experts' commentary into online exhibitions
  
• encourage visitors to add their own voices and stories to museum-based images
• allow visitors to curate their own collections of museum- or user-generated images
  

If you drool over fancy Flash interfaces for online collections, quit mooning around the IT department and head over to VoiceThread. They are committed to making this technology accessible (and free!) to educators permanently... there may be some great opportunities for collaboration for museums, too.