So Much to Learn...So Little Time

Really making use of the tech that kids bring to school

I got to thinking the other day in my register class as one of the students pulled out his iPhone, other mobile and iPod.
Although this pupil was a bit of an exception to the norm, most kids have a mobile phone on them at least.

I have already had my students using them to help vocab learning via simple audio files, but I wanted to go further and allow them to see either a picture which illustrates the vocab or the word itself.
Here is my solution:

• i recorded the audio in garageband
• i typed the vocab items onto slides in keynote
• i set the garageband file playing whilst recording the keynote slideshow (I could simply have narrated but it wouldn't have had the music)
• Hey presto a narrated vocab slideshow which I then exported to quicktime
  

I now needed to convert this in somehow to an acceptable format for mobile phone (3gp). My first idea was to use youconvertit.com to simply transcode the .mov file. This didn't work as the 3gp option isn't available for this conversion. I then thought I'd try to convert it from an online file, so I uploaded to blip.tv. BUT youconvertit isn't compatible with blip.tv urls. However with blip I was able to download an flv version. Using this I was then able to convert to 3gp...unfortunately this didn't work very well, the file was corrupted somewhere...and it was all getting a bit complicated.

THEN it dawned on me . Ok so it cost me £20, but it will be worth it. It worked like a dream. I just opened the .mov file and then exported it as a 3gp file. The reason why I say it will be worth it is that now I will be able to convert all the vocab guide podcasts ( which I want to redo) to mobile phone files to give out to students.

Result!






And here's the proof...sort of.

In case you are interested the film is below in the previous post.

Powered by ScribeFire.

The Results Confirm It

Its there, written in black and white (with blue hyperlinks), despite the fact that I am now no longer in my 30's and having a crocked back, I am a typical teenager...as far as my hearing goes.

You are the typical teenager

You can hear the frequency of the mosquito teen repellent - but probably not for much longer! The highest pitched ultrasonic mosquito ringtone that I can hear is 17.7kHz

Find out which ultrasonic ringtones you can hear!

I wonder how many kids would go this far to have a tone that adults couldn't hear in order to prevent them from knowing a mobile has gone off in class. I know most just set it on silent or vibrate.


Technorati Tags: cellphones, mobilephones, hearing

Audiko - ringtones

This could be a fun little application for a modern language classroom

Audiko

audiko is a simple service which helps you to make a ringtone of your favorite song!

Create kids speakings (eg verb drills, or vocabulary etc) and then transform them into ringtones. I won't go as far as saying all students would find this idea a cool addition to their mobile but it could definitely have its uses.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!


Obviously with a service such as this there are copyright issues and students should not be encouraged to use commercially available material to upload.

Upload an audio file, and it will take you to a wave form (see below) all you have to do is slide along the wave form and find the bit of the foem you want. Easy.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!


Click on create ringtone and it does what it says on the button. Here's one I prepared earlier using Yanick's 5x table rap. Once your ringtone has been created you can;

• download it to a computer
• download it to an iPhone
• copy a wap link into your mobile to download it directly
• or as I've done here embed it on your blog.

I'm not sure if there's a limit on the length of clip, but 30 secs is enough time to conjugate the verb "avoir" in the present tense.

The great thing about it is THERE IS NO SIGN UP SO NO IDENTITY PROBLEMS.

Technorati Tags: audiko