This week I played with several of the audio tools made available through the assignment.  The first one was Voki.  It was geared toward elementary school children and was very user friendly and engaging.  First, I selected my avatar, a wizard.  I changed up his clothes, hair color, and accessories and then I recorded what I wanted him to say.  Since it was a wizard and I’m a huge Harry Potter fan, I had my avatar ask what the viewer’s favorite Harry Potter book was. https://tinyurl.com/2cf4xxfg  I think elementary school students would enjoy using this tool.  I know from experience that children have a hard time writing to explain how they know an answer especially in math.  This tool might be useful in having them first articulate an answer verbally (King, 2016).  Once they have learned to do that, they can then more easily learn to write out their responses.  My one complaint about it was the brief introductory video.  In it, all of the staff and students, except for one African American girl at the very end, were white.  They definitely need to revisit that so it better represents all potential users.

The next two I tried were Vocaroo and Online Voice Recorder.  They were both very straight forward and easy to use.  You push the record button, talk, and push stop.  The Online Voice Recorder app did allow users to upload videos, images, and text, but it was definitely for older students.  The tool buttons were very small and it was not as easy to use.  I am still playing with it to try and get all three elements, voice, text, and image to work cohesively. 

For my Podcast review, I chose to check out Greeking Out from National Geographic Kids.  I chose this one because my mom’s family is Greek and Greek mythology became a favorite of my own children for a time.  I downloaded it and went back to the very first episode, Jason and the Golden Fleece, and found it very entertaining.  The narrator uses an announcer voice throughout making the retelling very dramatic.  While he is talking, another speaker breaks in and defines unfamiliar words.  Sometimes she “misunderstands” a word and the narrator has to correct her so she can give the right definition.  For example, she “confuses” the word fleas with fleece in this story which was very silly.  I think this would be a fun resource for older elementary school students to use when learning about mythology in school.  For me personally, I will listen to the other episodes for my own enjoyment and pass the name on to my adult daughters.  I think they would enjoy listening to it as well.

Overall, the tools this week were fun and easy to use.  I think they have many applications in the classroom though it is important to choose the right tool for the right grade level.

Resource

King, M. (2016, July 18). 4 Ways audio recording can boost classroom learning. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/4-ways-audio-recording-can-boost-classroom-learning