Teacher Tools pt 01-Audio Editors

Many teacher want to add sound to their on-line lessons.  There are several software programs that you can use to add sound to your classes.  Audacity and GarageBand are two excellent audio editing programs.

Software

Audacity: This is a free open source (and very powerful) audio editing software program. PC, Mac and even Linux users can download copies from: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Audacity how to’s on TeacherTube (TeacherTube tends to run slow):

• Audacity Podcast Tutorial Segment 1 part 1
• Audacity Podcast Tutorial Segment 1 part 2
• Audacity Podcast Tutorial Segment 1 part 3
• Audacity Podcast Tutorial Segment 1 part 4
• Audacity Podcast Tutorial Segment 2 part 1
• Audacity Podcast Tutorial Segment 2 part 2
• Other audacity how to videos on YouTube

GarageBand: For Mac only.  Part of the iLife package.  While this can be used for the aspiring musicians for the teacher we can use the default Podcast options.  While not as tweakable as Audacity, this does streaming the process.  I use GarageBand for my podcasts.  It just makes life easier.

• GarageBand how to from Apple

Hardware

If your computer has a built in microphone, you might be tempted to use it, don’t!  Yes it will work, but the audio quality is just horribly.  You can pick up a cheap microphone from your local electronic retailer.  I personally like the Blue Snowball USB micophone from BSW.

Teacher Tools

I am sitting in an on-line teacher training and I am amazed at how many distance education teachers do not know about the plethora of tools available.  While this series is not going to be completely comprehensive, it will give you a spring board.

While I am putting together the list I invite you to check out the following podcasts on technology tools for the classroom (all links will launch iTunes):

• Educational Podcasts
• Technology 4 Teachers
• The Tech Teachers