JanTech: Audio and Podcasting: Sounds Great!

HauntingVisionStock (Photographer). DeviantArt.com. Vintage Little Girl 2 [Web Photo]. 2009 November 2. CC By 3.0.

This week in LIBS 602 we created and shared audio files and podcasts.

Blabberize
Blabberize combines photos with audio files. Creators can place a "mouth" on any photo to create a talking effect. I would like to use this in my classroom for students to add their own voice to art inspired writing. I need to make the mouth move a little more on my Blabberize, but I have had a family emergency today, so I didn't have a chance to tweak it as much as I would like.

Vocaroo
Vocaroo has two qualities that appeal to me: simplicity and embed-ability. I love resources that require no special logins, passwords, or email addresses. It's much easier for students to use, and students can focus more on what they are recording rather than how to use the software. Sharing recording online without going through a conversion process is also very appealing for classroom teachers. I enjoy being able to easily embed the audio into my class blog. I might have students record themselves reading their own writing and an editing technique. After the recording, they can listen to their recording while reading their drafts, allowing their ears to pick up on mistakes the eyes may have overlooked.

AudioPal
AudioPal is similar to other audio tools I have used in the past where users can record themselves by computer, phone, or even text-to-speech, which always sounds a little unnatural to me. To retrieve your recording, you have to have an email address, which can be problematic to use in schools. However, once emailed, the file can be embedded into a website such as this blog. During March Madness, I could create an interactive website/tournament bracket where students could create their own mini-book talks and vote for their favorite books.

Podcasts
I explored TechTalk4Teachers, which is designed to help K-college level teachers keep up with latest technologies in their classrooms. The website features links to blogs, audio podcasts, and video podcasts. There really is a little bit of everything. As I browsed, I found a topic that is very timely for this time of the school year- Digital Organization! I am a little obsessed with organization, constantly trying and experimenting to find the right system that will work for me. This year in particular I have felt a true need to improve my organization, so I decided to give this podcast a try. Here are a few tips the author shared.

Avoid sub-folders in sub-folders in sub-folders. Try not to have file paths longer than three or four folders deep.
3-2-1 Back-up Rule: 3 copies of anything you care about using 2 different formats and 1 off-site back-up.
Organize folders first by year and then by course number/committee/etc. If you organize your files by school year, you can copy and paste files from one school year folder to the next.If you include a reflection file inside your school year folder, you will already have a list of what worked well in the lesson and what improvements you would like to make. In the new school year folder, you can then delete anything you don't need without the fear of completing losing a record of what you completed in previous school years.