I really enjoyed learning about all of the audio tools this week. I had a little bit of prior knowledge regarding audio tools from this school year. Starting out the year virtual presented a bit of a challenge for me to accommodate my students who needed a read aloud accommodation or just students who do better when they hear things read out loud to them. However, I stumbled across a TikTok post where the creator suggested a chrome extension that could be embedded and linked into various assignments. I appreciated the Edutopia article that listed other suggestions for audio tools aside from teacher use. Using the refining voice seems like an excellent way to have students respond to various things without writing or typing (King & LeVan, 2016). I think that students would appreciate being able to make voice notes on occasion too depending on what they are trying to complete.

Vocaroo, Speakpipe, and Cylp all seem straightforward and very easy to use, which is always appreciated by both teachers and students. Vocaroo and Speakpipe would definitely be my favorite as they did not ask me to sign up or create an account to use them. This is always appreciated when working with students, especially younger ones who have a hard time with creating accounts and remembering usernames and passwords. 

Additionally, I think podcasts are great. I listen to podcasts daily and have been wanting to incorporate them into my classroom for some time now. I am all about variety as an educator and the more variety I can have in the classroom/library the better. I listened to Hey Black Child, a black history podcast by the Ausmer family/siblings which sparked an idea for me. Either in a classroom or in a library setting students could create their own podcast using some of the audio tools aforementioned. I really liked that the podcast was short and sweet. I think that students would do well with this and a teacher/librarian could possibly create an activity for peer sharing or listening. 

Click here to listen to my blog post.

References: 

Ausmer, A., & Ausumer, A. (Host). (2020-present). Hey Black Child [Audio podcast]. Listen Notes. https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/hey-black-child/poetry-floetry-pilot-episode-cmtkPE4pUlz/

King, M., & LeVan, K. S. (2016, July 18). 4 Ways Audio Recording Can Boost Classroom Learning. Edutopia. Retrieved June 13, 2021, from https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/4-ways-audio-recording-can-boost-classroom-learning