I have used audio recorders in my own classroom. As an IB teacher, one of the internal assessments I needed to prepare students for was called an "Individual Oral Commentary." For this assignment, students had to give an 15 minute oral commentary about a passage from a text we had studied. To practice for this nerve-wreaking assignment, I had students use an audio tool that they could use with their cell phones. They could paste the link to their recordings, listen to their classmates' commentaries, and critique each other. Alas, that tool was only free for a short while, so I had to abandon that method of practicing for awhile.
That is why I am so happy to see different free voice recording apps pop up. Teachers in my school have been really happy with Audio Boo, so for this Thing, I gave that a try. Audio Boo will let you record for free up to 10 minutes for free, though if you had a longer speech, you could break it into two parts. I also like that you can post your clips easily to the web, Twitter, Facebook, etc. so that students can listen to their own speeches, and that of their classmates quite easily.
As a school librarian, I see many potential uses for Audio Boo and apps like it. Our students are preparing to give presentations to classes, on the speech team, and as part of history day. This is an easy way to build self assessment and reflection skills. In my personal life, it's also a great way to record audio of things you may want to remember (directions, an address?) later. I was surprised, once I got into the app, that there were so many channels you could listen to, including news stations like the BBC, podcasts from around the world, and even new music.
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