Sharing files from Quick Voice (..when the free version doesn’t let you share)

A few teachers at PRACE have been using the iPad app “Quick Voice” to record students talking. Unfortunately, the free version has a limit on the file size you can share via email (and also via google drive i think). We experimented a bit, and found that you can get around this by sharing the file 1) firstly share across to a different app known as “Voice Record Pro (VRP)” 2) and then you can “Share .. Open in” google drive. (This will only work if you have VRP installed Read More …

Chris Mooney talks about using the iPads with students

A while back, I asked Chris Mooney how she was experiencing the iPads in her English as a second language (ESL) classroom. She replied that so far, they have already been looking at YouTube videos and information texts, and it’s been fun. In future, Chris would like to find ways to: play interactive games on the overhead, get the group doing gap-fill (cloze) activities together, get into reading information texts as a group. You can hear the whole one-minute conversation here: What about you – what have you done with an iPad Read More …

Q&A session at Spring St Campus – many many questions!!

So, the session we had at Spring St was more chaotic than the one we had at Reservoir Neighbourhood House. Again, we started with brainstorming questions, but this time we dived straight into responding before the full list had built up. 06 May at Spring Street Airdrop – what is it and how does it work? Much of this session focussed on Airdrop, as many of you wanted to experiment and get hands-on with it. We tested out sending photos and documents from one iPad to another. How do we Read More …

More voice-overs for PageTurners (via Soundcloud)

So, as well as embedding voice-overs into the PageTurners website, i thought there must be a way that other people could embed the stories in their own sites as well. Sure enough, these days there are a few different ways to do this. One i’m trying out now is via Soundcloud. Woo-hoo! It works. But does it work in the land of iPad? Okay, back to editing the audio originals. Ned Kelly next, by Anne Dunn.

Phone blog your progress here via our iPadio phonecast channel

This post was originally written by Jill Koppel, as part of our North West e-mentor blog. Below is a phone blog posted by Jill to our North West e-Mentors ipadio channel. Phone blogging is very easy to do – once you’re feeling confident with the technology you could even create a channel for your students to use. Please consider joining us here with your first phone blog. Our iPadio channel is open for business: using ipadio you can call a special number (from anywhere in Australia it’s 1800-802569) from either Read More …

Green is for listening? The trauma of windows volume control..

So Tina, one of our amazing English teachers at PRACE, comes in with our box of headsets, “Same question i ask you every Monday.. green is for listening?” This is one of the things that used to drive me crazy when we were running our Can You Hear Us? projects.. (No, not Tina.. the computers!!) (Beware: Rant Approaching.) Most of the windows/pc boxes have a colour coding for the audio sockets (green for listening, pink for speaking), but many headsets use a different colour code for their plugs (orange or Read More …

Workshop at Converge (Can You Hear Us?)

Reflections on the session for Can You Hear Us? .. at the Converge08 e-learning conference (5Dec). The workshop went reasonably well. Really interesting people in the room, and many of the people there had used some kind of audio technologies .. including Skype, language laboratory setup, Wimba voice boards. i came up with a kind of jigsaw / find your partner activity, that i think went well and was fun. (Each person opens a wiki page with instructions for what to do. Eg some people have to wink .. and Read More …

Fill in forms .. on CD

Chris couldn’t do the whole research project, but i still wanted her to be involved; so we talked about how to use audio technologies with her very beginner, low literacy ESL learners. Filling in forms is a crucial survival skill, but the language is reasonably advanced. Chris’ students find it hard to remember written text or even recognise words on the page.. so we decided to prepare an audio CD allowing the text to be both on the page and on the CD player. She would have them do the Read More …

Can You Hear Us? New project launch ..

Thrills and spills !! What a lovely group of people we’ve got for the new PRACE research project into audio technologies: “Can You Hear Us?” We’re building on the successes of the 2007 “Can u hear me?” project, and last Thursday was the launch day. These sessions are always nerve-wracking and you never feel quite prepared enough, but we dived in and the water was warm! Plenty of ideas flowing around the table, and of course everyone is at different levels of knowledge and experience. First session was about creating Read More …