Feb. 23, 2009- "Audio Commentary"

Feb. 23, 2009- William Foster and Kimberly Fields from Front Range Community College attended our meeting and spoke to us about audio commentary. Teachers are now able to respond to students’ papers with voice instead of written comments. William and Kimberly said that in the beginning they began this program in order to “spice up their classes”. They also informed us that students prefer this method because it is fun to do and that the teacher’s tone comes across differently.

There are three different types of audio commentary that William and Kimberly told us about and those are Purevoice, Gabcast (over the phone), and Screencastomatic.

William uses Purevoice and gave us slides on how to use Purevoice. The following is from his slides:

Getting to Purevoice

• http://www.qctconnect.com/
• Click on “Purevoice” and you will be directed to Purevoice “Overview,” “Benefits” and “Downloads"
• Click on “Downloads” (He said one of the benefits is that it is a small file)

Using Purevoice

• All you wil need, once the program is installed, is an email account and a headset with a microphone and earphones, or your own personal microphone and earphone set
• The program is used just like an email.

Features

• Record your responses, just as you would on a tape recorder
• Your tone, attitude, and emotions will be captured
• Say more/Write less
• The recipient can respond in the very same email!!
• Have complete conversations as needed.
• The recordings can be saved and archived if desired because the message comes in the form of an attachment to your email address.

Kimberly uses mostly Gabcast and Screenomatic.

Gabcast (http://www.gabcast.com/)

• Gabcast uses Skype with microphone
• Free login with email/password
• Channels to help organized
• Can do the grading straight from your phone; just watch your phone minutes.
• There is NO privacy setting so avoid talking about grades since it gets published to the web.

Screencastomatic (http://www.screencastomatic.com/)

• Use screen shots with audio comments
• Video comments
• Go GREEN! This means you do not have to collect papers!
• See the following video to learn about Screencastomatic