Apr 22 2008
Ideas on how to use Audacity
It is always the way… after a day or afternoon spent at a workshop, either presenting or receiving, I am so wired at night that I have difficulty falling asleep. Perhaps it is just the getting out of the classroom and having the opportunity to share ideas with others. I always find it invigorating.
I feel that we missed an opportunity yesterday to share ideas about how we can use audacity in our classrooms. So last night, with my mind racing, I started to think about ways students can use audacity without even needing to edit or publish the audio.
- Have students record themselves delivering their public speaking speeches. They can listen to it being played back and do a self assessment.
- French or English as a second language teachers can record students for feedback on their pronunciation.
- In math, I have used audacity to record a student explaining his math problem. This students has difficulty writing and I wanted to have a true picture of what he knew. Having him record his solutions independently allowed me the freedom to move around the class and help other students.
I know that people left yesterday’s workshop not only with the hardware to start recording but also with ideas of how they were going to use those headsets. Please share your ideas either with us here through a comment or drop me an email so that I can pass the ideas on. The more we can help each other, the easier it is to introduce new technologies.
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I agree with Jane, it would have been nice to hear everyone’s ideas on how to use Audacity. One that comes to mind for me is to have students record their own stories. I have a unit where the culminating activity is to write a children’s story complete with pictures. Maybe it could be used as a read along with younger grades.
Of course, one could add photos and video using other pieces software like Photo Story, Movie Maker etc…But be forewarned, adding pictures and video greatly increases the complexity and time needed. You might just have created the dreaded assignment that never seems to come to an end – speaking from personal experience, of course!
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