Audacity

AUDACITY is a GREAT tool for teaching a wide variety of subjects online!

One of the uses is to give students audio assignments, along with written ones. The instructor can ask students to write a paragraph on a topic they are studying and then record themselves reading the paragraph. The instructor will use the writing text to check any word she may not understand in the recording. The instructor can give students feedback in audio form as well.

Since it is an audio program, it is especially valuable for teaching and learning foreign languages.The instructor can ask students to interview a native speaker of the language they are learning and record the interview.

This idea could also be used for other content areas. The instructor or the students could interveiw an expert in the field they are studying and this could be uploaded to the class for all to share.

Audacity is very simple to use, and after the file is saved as mp3 it is easily uploaded to any LMS (e.g., Moodle).

Note to New Users: Due to licensing issues, the Audacity installation does not come with software to create MP3 files. The LAME MP3 Encoder is a free plug-in that will let you create MP3 files in Audacity. Download it at [].