Original collage made in Fotor.com by María José Miranda

Upgrading Education Through Sound and Recording Tools

By María José Miranda Guevara 

English and Preschool Teacher

Saturday, March 23rd, 2019

Post 8

     On session 4 we used a technological tool named SoundCloud where you can record material and upload it online for other people to listen to. This kind of tool offers us the possibility to record ourselves, make our students record themselves and create original material that matches perfectly with our lesson purposes. Nowadays the majority of students have their own cellphone or iPad which teachers cause as an educational tool in order to use those listening materials. They can even add a personalized aspect to their audios and materials through creating mashups or adding interesting and appealing sound effects. 

     The first material to refer to is SoundCloud which is a technological tool that people mostly use to listen to music for free. The truth is that SoundCloud has the ability and potential to be used as an educational tool. There, you can upload any audio you want, even one you just recorded it with your cellphone. In education that can be used to create original and related material for your students. In addition, your students can create their own original material instead of giving the usual and boring oral presentation. All of these is free and available online for any kind of smartphone or computer. You just need to be connected with the internet. 

     As I said before, teachers can record themselves to create original material that relates to the students environment. Sometimes one of the biggest problems teachers have is to find for material that students can relate to, but with our cellphones those materials can be a click away. You do not need a complex material in order to create those audios. It is only necessary a cellphone. You can send those audios to your students cellphones or upload them online for them to be easier to use. 

     Not only teacher can use their cellphones to record their materials, but also students. Students can record themselves to achieve different purposes. Maybe for the teacher to evaluate their pronunciation and intonation. Students can also transform their oral presentations into audios for their classmates to have them. Also, they can create role plays and add their own personal style to each of the audios. Students can record with their cellphones or by using computers. There are many technological tools that are easy to show to our students in order for them to use those tools properly. 

     In previous lessons the professor explained about Web 2.0 which are tools that technology offer that we use to share and receive information online. The creation and recording of audios can be combined with Web 2.0 and create an amazing educational tool. For example, blogger gives the ability to the teacher to not only create the audio but to upload it and ass a quiz under it to make the activities more complex. Also , many social media portals as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter give the opportunity to add audio or to attach information in order for our students to have easier access. We can join the audio with an online game by simply putting the links or even the HTML documents. 

     To conclude, audios are a very important part to develop listening skills, but with the possibility of creating our own recordings we can also develop our reading, and speaking skills. We have in our disposition tools as Sound Cloud, cellphones and computers. With SoundCloud we can upload any kind of audio we want and expose it online for our students. With the cellphones we can record our own original audios and even our students can record their own materials and share them with the teacher and their classmates. All these sharing can be done by using the Web 2.0 and attaching extra materials as videos, quizzes and more to make more complete tasks for our students.