Skills development and Technology issues
Wimba Voice Tools makes building community online far more achievable for teachers than working in a text-only environment. The quality of the student experience is higher and teachers are able to teach more easily. But what is the cost of this experience? What technical skills do teachers require and how hard is the technology to learn and master in such a range of locations?
"to be honest we have very few difficulties... and to be absolutely frank it's actually much easier to get a teacher to engage with voice board technologies than it is with a text environment. They're easier to use... I don't think I've seen a technology that is so easily taken up by teachers from a technical point of view. That's because everyone knows what the play button does. Everyone knows what a stop button does. Everyone knows what the pause button does. It's very very intuitive. So the uptake has been significant " (BB)
Wimba Voice Tools are different from most voice applications available on the market in that they are asynchronous. This opens up a whole range of possibilities in the online environment because you can selectively release to specific students, you can incorporate text and you can carry on a discussion which can occur over a period of time, adding to the effectiveness.
"There are very few technologies that I have come across that have anything like [the features of] the asynchronous voice boards" (BB)
