Transitioning from VoiceThread to Harmonize

Overview

Transitioning from VoiceThread to Harmonize but worried about losing your media-rich, audio/video-focused activities? VoiceThread allows instructors and students to leave audio, video, and text comments “on top of” slides, images, documents, or videos in an asynchronous way. 

In VoiceThread, instructors often...

• Upload PowerPoint or Google Slides, images, or videos and narrate them while students pause and comment on specific slides.
• Ask students to record project presentations, lab walk-throughs, design critiques, or language speaking tasks and comment on each other’s work.
• Use recorded presentations as an assessment method so students can demonstrate understanding verbally and visually, instead of only in written exams or papers.

Harmonize supports these same patterns, but treats media-rich work more like the tools students will use in their professional lives. In Harmonize, you and your students use a variety of multimedia features without leaving your LMS, and you can combine them as you see fit.

In Harmonize, both instructors and students can...

• Share screen with one click (like you would in Zoom or Teams)
• Record themselves in video or audio (also one click)
• Upload any attachments (and they’re instantly ready for critique)

If you’ve relied on VoiceThread for narrated lectures and student presentations, you can recreate those same activities in Harmonize—with a simpler workflow for students and less “tech support” overhead for you (since the student interface is more generic and simpler to use).

Feature Comparison: How VoiceThread-Style Activities Work in Harmonize

Overall, Harmonize supports the same features and patterns as VoiceThread, but it simplifies them. Here is an overview of how the tools compare:

The sections below walk through exactly how each of these features works in Harmonize. We recommend reading this guide chronologically the first time, but on a reread, you may want to skip ahead to a specific section:

1. Creating Presentations (Instructor and Student Workflow)
2. Adding Questions, Commentary, and Critique to Presentations
3. Instructor Setup: Visibility, Structure, and Milestones

1. Creating Presentations (Instructor and Student Workflow)

Step 1: Create a Presentation

In Harmonize, creating a presentation looks the same whether it’s you or your students doing it. This is the functional replacement for “creating a VoiceThread.” Instructors usually embed their presentations in the “topic instructions” part of the assignment, while students start by “creating a post” and then posting their presentation there.

💡 Insight: From the student perspective, there is no separate “presentation tool” to learn. They use the same Create Post workflow they already know from discussions.

Step 2: Add your slides, video, or screen share

In the editor, any user (you or a student) can:

• Upload slides, documents or images (PowerPoint, PDF, Google Slides exports, etc.).
• Upload or record video (talking head, demo, lab walkthrough, etc.).
• Start a screen share recording to walk through slides or show something on their screen.

This becomes the “presentation” other people will watch and respond to—just like a VoiceThread, but built directly inside Harmonize.

💡 Insight: From the student perspective, this is the same workflow they would use in their eventual careers. Sharing your screen and turning on video are table stakes for today’s work environment, and you're preparing the students to do just that.

You can think of every Harmonize post with media as a mini VoiceThread: a bundle of artifacts that people can comment on and critique. The same goes for the instructor embedding them in their instructions: those artifacts are the mini VoiceThread.

Media embedded in instructions = mini VoiceThread by instructor

Media embedded in a post = mini VoiceThread by student

For step-by-step guides, see:

• Uploading Media and Files
• Recording Video in Harmonize
• Recording Audio in Harmonize
• Screen Recording in Harmonize
   

2. Adding Questions, Commentary, and Critique to Presentations

Once a presentation exists (yours or a student’s), everyone uses the same tools to engage with it. This is the replacement for VoiceThread’s “comment on top of media” experience.

Option A: Respond within video (timestamped comments)

Respond within video (timestamped comments) is useful for fine-grained, time-based commentary. This is similar to leaving comments at specific spots in a VoiceThread video. All users (whether students or instructors) can leave timestamped feedback.

For a step-by-step guide, see: Respond within Video (timestamped feedback).

Option B: Respond within slides or images (pins and comments)

If the presentation attaches slides or images, viewers can also comment within those artifacts. Again, this is true for all users.

For step-by-step instructions, see Creating Image Annotations and Document Critique.

Note: If slides are uploaded as images, you and your students will be able to use Image Annotations to critique them. If the slides are uploaded as PowerPoint or PDF files, you and your students will instead use Document Critique tools.

Option C: Reply below the post (overall reactions)

For more general questions, takeaways, or summaries, viewers can simply reply (post or comment). Replies come with additional multimedia options. Both students and instructors can post and comment, and instructors have the option to make their comments private.

For step-by-step instructions, see Creating a Post in a Harmonize Discussion and Commenting on a Post.

Multimodal critique, everywhere

In all three options, participants can mix:

• Text
• Video
• Audio
• Screen share recordings
• Attachments

So you can ask students to critique your lecture, respond to peers’ presentations, or complete formal peer review tasks using the same commenting tools, regardless of whether the “presenter” was an instructor or another student.

3. Instructor Setup: Visibility, Structure, and Milestones

Behind the scenes, the way you set up the Harmonize activity determines:

• Who can see each presentation.
• Who can see each set of comments.
• How structured the feedback and grading needs to be.

This is where you map your old VoiceThread patterns into Harmonize.

3.1 Choose who can see presentations and comments

When initially setting up, pick the Harmonize assignment type that matches your goals:

Individual (Private Assignment)

• Closest to: VoiceThread assignments where only the instructor sees each student’s presentation and comments.
• Each student’s post and associated feedback are visible only to you (never to classmates).

Discussion (Whole Class or Small Groups)

• Closest to: VoiceThread activities where everyone watches and comments on each other’s work.
• You can:
  • Keep it class-wide, or
  • Use small groups so students only see and respond within their group.

Peer Review Assignment

• Closest to: VoiceThread assignments with structured, assigned peer critique.
• Students are assigned specific peers’ presentations to review, they don’t get to choose.
• You can require them to complete rubric-based or prompt-based feedback before they’re done.

💡 Insight: From the student side, the workflow is the same (create a post, watch, comment). From your side, the assignment type controls who sees what.

For step-by-step guides, see:

• Create an Individual Assignment
• Create a Graded Discussion
• Create a Peer Review Assignment
• Managing Groups in Harmonize

3.2 Decide how structured you want feedback to be

After choosing an assignment type, set expectations for how students should use the commenting tools:

For a step-by-step guide to peer review, see Create a Peer Review Assignment.

3.3 Use milestones (multiple due dates) and auto-grading

Milestones are where Harmonize can go beyond what most instructors did in VoiceThread. When you create a Harmonize assignment, you can:

• Add milestones (multiple due dates) automatically.
• Enable auto-grading with a single click.

A typical pattern for presentation activities:

Harmonize will:

• Track whether each student met each milestone.
• Auto-calculate participation scores based on your rules.
• Send grades directly to your LMS gradebook, while still letting you adjust scores in the grading interface.

For step-by-step guides, see Milestones and Auto-Grading.

3.4 Review and grade inside your LMS workflow

Finally, you can:

• Open any Harmonize activity directly from your LMS.
• Watch presentations and read comments in context.
• Leave your own timestamped or summary feedback.
• Override or fine-tune auto-generated scores if needed.

All grades flow back automatically to your LMS gradebook—so you keep the benefits of VoiceThread-style media activities, but everything lives in one consistent environment.
 

Mapping VoiceThread to Harmonize

For VoiceThread users, the mapping looks like this:

“In VoiceThread, I create a lecture and students comment on it.”

→ In Harmonize, you create a Discussion with your lecture media. Students use Respond Within Video, pins on slides, or replies below the prompt.

“In VoiceThread, students send me private presentations. I'm the only one who sees.”

→ In Harmonize, you create an Individual Assignment. Students create posts with their presentations; only you see and grade them.

“In VoiceThread, students present to each other and give peer feedback.”

→ In Harmonize, you create a Discussion and set group visibility if you want, or use a Peer Review assignment. Students create presentation posts and use the same commenting tools to respond to their peers.

The creation and critique workflows stay the same for everyone. Your job is just to pick the visibility and structure that match your goals for the activity.
 

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I help my students get started with Harmonize?

• Most students find Harmonize intuit and easy to use, but if you want to give them extra preparation, we recommend two things:
  1. Give students a link to the Student Help Center.
  2. Create a Low-Stakes Introductory Video Discussion that will introduce them to the tools they need a fun, authentic, course-relevant way.

How do timestamped critiques work in Harmonize?

• All timestamped critiques in Harmonize are text-only. When you or your students use tools like Respond Within Video (or leave comments anchored to specific points in a recording), those comments are stored and displayed as text tied to a timestamp in the media. However, we have suggestions for making video-on-video timestamped feedback work. See Timestamped Video Feedback on Video or watch the 3-Minute Video Instructions in Engaging Students with Video Recording and Critique.

What if I want to draw on my slides like I do in VoiceThread?

• If you like to draw on top of your slides while presenting (circling key ideas, underlining text, sketching arrows, etc.), you can continue doing that using PowerPoint or Google Slides:
  • Both PowerPoint and Google Slides support inking or drawing with your mouse (or stylus) while you present.
  • When you use Harmonize’s screen share recording, those live drawings and annotations are captured as part of the video.
• Workflow:
  1. Open your slides in PowerPoint or Google Slides and start presenting.
  2. Use the built-in drawing/annotation tools to mark up your slides as you talk.
  3. At the same time, use Harmonize screen share recording to capture your presentation window
  4. Post that recording in Harmonize as your lecture or presentation.
• From your students’ perspective, this looks very similar to “drawing on slides in VoiceThread”: they see your slides, your ink/annotations, and hear your narration, all within a single Harmonize video.