Archive for the tag 'audio'

Using Audio in the Classroom

February 16th, 2009

I have outlined some of the resources and tools available in a screencast for you to watch.

Read on…

‘This I Believe’ -an assignment catalyst

January 29th, 2008

This I BelieveOver winter break I had a chance to read a few books. My favorite was “This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women” from NPR. The book presents a collection of essays from NPR’s radio program of the same name.

The collection showcases the personal beliefs of citizens. Some essays are from the 1950’s and the others began in 2005 when the show was resurrected.

I highly recommend the book in audio format since you can hear the essays read by their authors. Most of the recent essays can also be heard (and read) at the NPR website.

NPR also describes how people can submit their own essays. They discuss how this idea has been used in classrooms across the world. The obvious assignment is to have your students write their own creed. Here are some additional ideas that I think might work too:

  1. Don’t write it- say it! Have students create an audio version of their essay. Students can record their work with Audacity. The essays could be shared as podcasts allowing students to receive feedback from their peers via comments.
  2. Students could pick a character from a novel and write the character’s ‘I believe’ statement.
  3. Write an essay for a prominent person in history. For example, what do you think Lincoln would have written?
  4. Come up with a class creed- a ”This We Believe” essay. If students used a wiki, they could compose this essay collaboratively throughout the semester.

Find free book online; Audio-books too!

November 12th, 2007

Beowulf the MovieBeowulf opens in theaters this Friday. I vaguely remember reading this in high school my Senior year. Since Beowulf is in the public domain, I decided to refresh my memory of the story by reading it online.

There are several great sites that offer free books online. Here are a few that I’ve come to love:

Make some noise with SlideShare

July 31st, 2007

Just a day after I posted my article about sharing presentations, SlideShare added what we’ve all been waiting for— audio.

SlideShare, a site that allows you to upload and easily share your presentations, has created Slidecasts. Take any mp3 file from the web and synchronize it with your SlideShare presentation. They have an easy-to-use synchronization tool that makes the process a snap. (Watch their screencast for instructions on how to use the tool.)

SlideCast

Here is my first Slidecast:




It should be noted that SlideShare doesn’t support presentations with animations, so this isn’t the best tool if you are looking to demonstrate software. Another shortcoming is that SlideShare doesn’t let you upload your audio to their site. You’ll need to post the mp3 file somewhere else.

All in all, Slideshare is a free and simple tool that just got better.

Those who stutter start calls with Audacity

July 23rd, 2007

AudacityA few days ago I saw a woman on television that has cerebral palsy which causes her to have a serious stutter. One thing the program showed was the difficultly those who stutter experience when they are making phone calls. On the show, the woman was trying to call tech support. Unfortunately, the people on the other line kept hanging up on her because they thought her stutter was either a joke or they just didn’t want to take the extra time necessary.

If only she could get an initial introduction out to explain the stutter, maybe the call would be completed. I think Audacity could help here.  With this free and easy audio editing program, callers could record a brief introductory message that would ask the listener for their patience. Using Audacity, the caller can snip out the pauses and then play the message that would start the call.