Week Four (June 10-16): Audio Tools!

This was an interesting assignment as I don’t like the way my voice sounds on a recording, but I got over it and did it! I looked at all the tools in the sandbox for this week, and here’s how I feel about four of them:

1. I really liked Vocaroo the best (in terms of user friendliness). The reason being is for one, it was very simple to use: you hit record, then stop, and then save. It will give you a link right there for you to use. I could see myself using this in my classroom for those students who are nervous to present. In 7th grade, we do a mythology project where students research a mythological figure and then present it to the class. Students get very nervous standing up there, but if they used Vocaroo and recorded what they want to say, it will relieve some of that fear. My only fear with this website is because of the way it looks and because it needs permission to use the microphone, it may be blocked on school computers.
2. The second one I liked was SpeakPipe. Same user friendliness as Vocaroo but the only thing I did not like was that you had a limit of five minutes (in the free version). You could pay to upgrade, but the plans aren’t cheap, especially when you have over 100 students. I could use this in my classroom with my students’ writing portfolios. Like we do in this class, my students make blogs with their writings over the course of the year. Instead of typing their reflection at the bottom like I have had them do in the past, I could have them record their reflection and post the link instead.
3. The last one which was really fun (and is below) was Blabberize. I could definitely use this in the library for book introductions (I would just need to work on fixing the mouths a little better!) I could have the book on display and a computer with the video up that the students could play. I would make a QR code with the video, but when I tried, the video would not play on my IPhone; I think it’s because the program uses flash, and IPhones do not support this. My husband also saw me making this and said he could use it in his science classroom. He said he would have students pick an animal, use that as the picture, and with this program, discuss the animal’s classification and biome they live in. This one would be used more in middle and high schools, while Vocaroo and SpeakPipe could be used in elementary.
4. I did not like Audiopal. It was not user friendly. Every time I tried to record using the microphone, it would tell me my recording did not work, and I made sure the microphone was on. I don’t like that you can call to make your recording because thinking of school children, if you let them call this number, they may be calling others instead of this number. You can text to speech and have the program read it, but in my opinion, the voice sounds too robotic. I personally don’t like this one.

Click the link below for an example of how I could use it in my future library!

http://blabberize.com/view/id/1872304

Adapted from OpenClipArt-Vectors. (April 1, 2016). Actor-boy-celebrity-daniel radcliffe–harry potter [Digital Photo]. Pixabay. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/vectors/actor-boy-celebrity-1299629/. CC BY