When thinking about today's tool, I was thinking I wish I had an Easy Button to push. Then I remembered that YouTube exists so here's your very own digital Easy Button. Feel free to push it after trying out today's spotlight tool.
Today I want to share a really powerful but incredibly easy tool called Vocaroo. Vocaroo only does one thing - record audio. When you first look at the Vocaroo website, it seems so simple that it couldn't possibly be very useful. At first glance it does seem that way. I can click the record button and record. So what? I can do that on my phone too. What's the big deal?
I'll tell you what the big deal is. The power comes from the combination of the simplicity of using the tool combined with the ease of sharing out the recorded audio. This tool is so easy that I recommend it to kindergarten and first grade teachers all the time, but it can still be a useful tool in the upper grades. Let's take a look at what happens after you finish recording to see the power of this tool in action.
Once you finish recording your audio and click save, this awesome option bar appears. Notice that you don't have to download the audio or manipulate it or anything else. Now with just one click I can share this audio straight to my audience by posting the link, using the embed code or opening up the QR code. If you really want to, you can also download your audio file.
Now that we see how easy this tool is to use, let's talk about all the great ways that we can use it in classrooms. How awful is it to wake up early in the morning and realize that you are too sick to go to school that day? I know for me it was always harder to make sub plans than to just go to school. Now, you could just click open Vocaroo, record instructions for your students for each activity you want them to do, pop the links into an email and now your sub can simply play your audio file so that you can explain to your students what they should be doing. How awesome is that! Another way that I've seen teachers using this tool is to record students. Think about elementary teachers who have to do fluency checks or running records. Sometimes its hard to fit all of those in during the day. Now you can set up a center and teach students how to record themselves. Then they can simply copy the link and paste it to a Padlet or Seesaw or other tool. How many of you are doing things such as book clubs or PBL with your students where they work in groups? Don't you wish you could hear all of their great conversations (and sometimes maybe not so great)? Now you can. Have each group record their group discussion with Vocaroo and turn in the link via Google Classroom or Seesaw when they finish. There are so many other options such as creating audio for listening centers, having students record an audio of their writing to share with parents and even creating audio announcements to email home to parents.
Vocaroo is such an easy tool to use. I feel confident that you'll be up and going in just a matter of minutes. Watch the short video below to learn more about using Vocaroo and get started enhancing your classroom with audio today!
Let us know how you are using Vocaroo in your classroom by sharing a comment below.
No comments:
Post a Comment