Podcasts made easy with Vocaroo

Podcast - The buzz word

Podcast is an online audio content. The audio file is downloadable to iPod or other portable media players on demand. Listeners can then listen to it anytime and anywhere at their convenience. To produce a podcast, we can use a tool, called Vocaroo, to record voice or audio with much simplicity! 

What is Vocaroo? 

Vocaroo is one of the online voice recording services that allows us to send voice messages across the interwebs. Vocaroo has slowly gaining its popularity for podcasting purposes. Let's look at its specialties:

1. Free! 

Vocaroo is a free service! We can create audio recordings without the need to install any software! We don't even have to create an account to use it. Even if we would like to create one, it is free of charge. All we need is a microphone or a built-in one. 

2. Easy to use

To create a voice recording, we just have to

• plug in a microphone or use the built-in microphone, 
• click record, and 
• start speaking.

"Click to Record" button

The tool has also allowed us to review our audio and try a second or third take. After listening to the recording and If we are not satisfied with it, just click "Retry" button. Otherwise, we can just choose to publish it without going through a another attempt. 

"Retry" button

3. Cool

What is so great about Vocaroo is that it offers us to

• embed our voice recording to blogs or other websites using the HTML code provided, 
• download it as a MP3, Ogg, FLAC, WAV
• share the audio file to other social networking sites, and 
• email it to friends or anyone. 

Sharing options

How can teacher use Vocaroo in classroom teaching?

1. To allow students to practise reading independently

• Teacher can ask students to read a text (of any genre) aloud and record their own reading using Vocaroo. The text can be a story, a speech, a poem, a report, a news etc. Learning takes place as students listen to the audio recording, determining how fluent and smooth is their reading, checking on the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation. In other words, students learn as they compare their own reading to what is considered a good reading. 

2. To assess students' speaking skills

• Teacher can assign any topic for students to talk on and listen to the audio recording created using Vocaroo later on. While listening to the file, teacher may make evaluation towards students' speaking skills. This includes checking on students' fluency, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary choice, sentence construction, etc. Other than having teacher to do the evaluation, teacher may also allow students to exchange their recordings so as to promote peer-assessment and feedback. 

4. To give students oral exercise as a homework

• Teacher may design a speaking task and ask students to complete it using Vocaroo at home. The tool brings innovation to the design of homework. Students can have oral exercises, other than just writing, listening and reading exercise. In this way, students are encouraged to use English both in the class and out of the class, hence, maximising the opportunity for students to speak in a second language.

5. To record students discussion in a communicative activity

• Recording what has been discussed allows students to review on the points  that have come up with. Nevertheless, it also allows both teacher and students to evaluate the latter's communicative skills. Both teacher and students can access on latter's linguistics knowledge, pragmatic competence (how to use language to achieve communicative goals), discourse competence (how to perform turns-taking, how to maintain a conversation, how to develop the topic), strategic competence (how to express successfully with the lack of resources) as well as fluency. Communicative activity often exhibits a real communicative situation; therefore, the recording can tell how well students can use language in a meaningful way. 

Why would we use Vocaroo?

1. To promote autonomous learning

• The tool encourages students to take responsibility and self-direct their own learning. As discussed above, students can listen back to their own recordings and self-evaluate their speaking abilities. If they find their speaking skills below the desirable level, they might do something to improve their competency. 

2. To create E-portfolio

• As the audio file can be downloaded, shared via emails or other social sites and can even be embedded in the blogpost, both students and teacher can have a record of all the voice recording created. With a record of the audio files, they can review the recordings from time to time and observe how much is students' progression in speaking and communicating. 

Limitations of Vocaroo

1. We cannot edit the recording. If any mistakes occurs, we have to begin recording again from the very beginning.

2. The recorded files are deleted after one year for those without a Vocaroo account.

3. We need to have access to internet in order to use the tool. 

Here is an example of my audio recording created using Vocaroo. 

Record and upload voice >>

Try out this tool yourself now! 

Dvolver

What is Dvolver?

Dvolver is a movie maker which allows us to make our own animated movies online. More than 8 million movies have been made here! Dvolver is a very handy tool. It is easy to use and free of charge! We do not even have to sign up, too!

Using this tool, we can put forwards our message through a series of conversations between two characters. 'People have a lot to say, and they like to say it with animated characters' said the Dvolver moviemaker site. In fact, Dvolver provides more than 30 animated characters, over 10 styles (backgrounds and skies) and four scenarios/ plots for us to choose while setting up an animation. Each character comes with a fun written profile. Characters include normal looking people, celebrities lookalikes, animals, aliens and etc. Likewise, each style has fun descriptions of the climate and culture.

After choosing them, we can type in our own short dialogue texts and choose preferred soundtrack to put into the short clip, too. The animation that we produce can be a short single scene animated movie or a longer one by adding more scenes. Once we finish customising it, we may share it with people through email or copy link/ code and embed it into a blog post or a website.

The youtube video below provides a clear explanation on how to use Dvolver for movie making: 

Here is an example of animation that I have made:

How can we use Dvolver in the classroom?

We can use this for a number of things:

1. To present new language points
   eg. Teacher can demonstrate how past tense can be used to show past event through a conversation between two characters. Students, on the other hands, can create movie, which incorporates the use of past tense,  as a practice. 
2. To teach new vocabulary
   eg. Teacher can present a dialogue, which contextualises a list of new vocabulary, as a pre-reading activity. Teacher may then elicit and pre-teach the set of vocabulary before getting the students into a reading text. 
3. To learn about certain topics
   e.g. Teacher may ask students to talk about topics, like holiday, pet, family, hobby, festival, food, dream etc through a discussion between two characters.  
4. To create story
   eg. Teacher may allow students to explore on their creativity by making up stories with themes, like 'A lesson to be learnt', 'An unforgettable experience', etc. 
5. To give example of social English/ To demonstrate social expressions, i.e to teach students how certain language forms, phrases or expressions are being used in a real social context.
   eg. Teacher may ask students to create movies that display situations like 'making polite request', 'rejecting someone's invitation', 'giving instruction', 'making introduction', etc. 
6. To tell jokes
   eg. Teacher and students may create jokes through the conversation between two characters in order to make English language learning more fun and interesting. 
7. To exhibit an interview session
   eg. Teacher may ask students to work in pair, whereby one acts as an interviewer while another as an interviewee. Students need to role play as a doctor, reporter, sportsman, president, minister, teacher, etc. 
8. To provide feedback/ To give a review eg. Teacher may ask students to give their opinion of a book, play, film, etc through a dialogue between two characters.

Why would we use Dvolver in the classroom?

1. It is simple, quick and easy to use. 
2. It gives a professional looking outcome. We can give the digital movie we create a title, some 'credits' and a background design for the cover page.  
3. It is useful for the contextualisation of new grammar and new vocabulary. It displays the functions of the language forms or how language forms are used in discourse level.
4. It acts as a medium for an international cultural exchange. Students can include cultural aspects into their movies and share to a wider audience. 
5. It is interesting and engaging. Students may enjoy incorporating animations into their language learning. 
6. It is an alternative to a speaking activity. Instead of putting students into a face-to-face conversational situation, students can practise the meaningful use of the language forms through a conversation between two animated characters. 
7. It is motivating for second language learners of English to learn the language. The tool helps to reduce students' anxiety and affective filter of doing a face-to-face conversations with peers. 
8. It allows students to build up their creativity and imaginative ability. The wide selection of characters, backgrounds and plots allow students to have the freedom of creating whatever possible stories they like.
9. It gives students the sense of ownership for the movies created. Students can give themselves a credit after creating the animation. 

What are the limitations of Dvolver?

1. The animation characters cannot speak aloud and do not display any facial expressions and body gestures. 
2. Some characters may inappropriate for younger learners. 
3. Movies cannot be be edited once completed. Students will need to redo the movie if there is any mistake.
4. Not every language can be applied to the dialogue. 
5. It needs internet access to operate. 
6. There is no censoring; therefore, students can write anything in the dialogue.