Monday, February 21, 2011

Making your own podcasts: Vocaroo and Audioboo

Using Vocaroo, you can easily record your voice and send it to people via mail.

What you need are a microphone, a internet-connected computer and an email account. There is no time limit for the recording and you can re-record it if you don't like it. You can also post your recording in the internet by embedding HTML code. 


  • For students: improve their speaking skills by podcasting their recording. Activities can be mini-presentation, answering a specific questions or self-reflection; self-reflection on the pronunciation. 
  • For teachers: giving spoken feedback to students; spoken instruction about the homework or the assignment. 
  • chances for everyone to speak: students can podcast their ideas in the internet about a same topic, teacher will randomly play the recordings in the class and collect students' ideas. It can motivate everyone in the classroom to speak out. 
  • Limitation: the sound quality is not good



Different from Vocaroo, AudioBoo is a platform where you can podcast your recordings and share them with each other. Once you have an AudioBoo account, you can save all of your recording in your profile and other people can see your recordings. 


You need the same facilities as in Vocaroo. However, you have more options in AudioBoo. If you want to podcast your recording via mobile phone, you can download the application to your phone. And it makes the podcasting more mobile and flexible. You can also add a tile, photo, location and tags and edit or delete them. 


The recording can only last for 5 minutes. 


Anyway, AudioBoo is not only a recording tool but also a platform that you can share your recording with others. You can search your interests and listen to others' ideas. 









The usefulness of AudioBoo is quite similar to Vocaroo, but it can also: 
  • For students: absorb different ideas from others all around the world.
  • For teachers: authentic listening materials of the sharing podcasts of others
limitation: 
  • time limit
  • too many podcasting available in AudioBoo but students can hardly find the suitable one for them by themselves according to their English level. 

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