Audacity

I would like to recommend the program Audacity to you. It is a free program in which you can record or play different music files. It is also a so called wiki program with an open source, which means that anyone can make changes if they want to and know how. Most often it is users of the program who makes the changes which means that the program improves constantly.

With this program you can do a lot of things. For example you can edit sound files, turn your cassettes and vinyl into digital music files and record several tracks which will overlap each other. For instance I did a recording when I sang Brother Jacob in canon with myself :-).

The program is easy to use. Just start the program put your headset on, press the record button and that is it. You can easily edit your sound files or other sound files. There is also a possibility to put effects on your sound, for instance make the recording go backwards, tune in or out, noise cancelling, change speed and many more effects.

You download the program from this website:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/?lang=sv

You can export your sound files to Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF files. To export to MP3 you need a decoder which you can download here:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&item=lame-mp3
Read the instructions and then click on “LAME download page”. When you get to the new page click on the link: “Lame v3.98.2 for Audacity on Windows.exe” and you are on your way.

The program has many functions and there are several tutorials on the Internet to get you going. Here you can find Audacity’s own tutorial:
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Category:Tutorial

To use Audacity for both teacher and pupils
This program is useful when working with the children’s ‘Personal Development Plan’-PDP (IUP in Swedish). You can let the children read and save the recording in a digital PDP-portfolio. In this way it is easy for the children, their parents and you to hear the improvement in the children’s reading. This is an excellent alternative for children’s self assessment. They can do the recording in their own time and pace. And they can re-record until they are satisfied.

It is also easy for you as a teacher to record audio home works for your children. A possible way of helping those children who have difficulties in learning to read, they can look at the text and listen to your voice at the same time. When doing a recording with Audacity it is very easy to make as many copies of the files as you need.

The children can do interviews with each other instead of a regular test. Since they record the interview you can listen to it later and see how they managed.

The children can do presentations as if it was a radio program.

One of the possibilities with this program is to record several audio tracks to play parallel to each other, as I mentioned earlier, I sang Brother Jacob in canon with myself ;-). For instance, if you or the children are doing a digital story in Photo Story or PowerPoint and want more than one sound to every picture. You can make them ready in Audacity and then import them to your story in Photo Story or PowerPoint.

I am sure that you can find other use of this program once you started using it.

What you need to make it work

• To use this program you need a computer with 512 mb RAM (work memory) and 1 Ghz processor speed if you run Windows XP, or 2 Gb RAM and 1 Ghz processor speed if you run Vista. Since this is below what an average computer has you can go right ahead and install it.
  
• To download you need a connection to Internet but after that you work directly from the computer’s hard drive.
  You need a microphone and speakers, even though I recommend you to use a headset because it gives a better recording sound with less disturbing surrounding sounds.
  
• The rest is up to you and your pupil’s creativity :-D
  
  /Kicki :-)