Simple Audio Recorder with Multiple Classroom Applications
Community Review for SoundCloud
My Take
SoundCloud is a user-friendly audio recording and sharing service. I love it because it's simple, free, and doesn't require any special equipment. It's an excellent way to record semester reflections, book opinions, original songs, spoken poems, interviews, and more. Although it's easy to use, it allows students an opportunity to practice technology literacy, and the embedding feature allows for a bit of coding when publishing to an ePortfolio or blog. For students accustomed to more engaging ways of recording and sharing audio (i.e. YouTube videos) or those who are not auditory learners may think the service boring or a hassle.
How I Use It
When I need to send an auditory message to my students or post an assignment online, SoundCloud makes the task easy. The website allows me to disseminate information easily while catering to my auditory learners and challenging the rest of my students to practice their listening skills (which is always valuable!). After I introduce SoundCloud to my students (i.e. online assignment directions), I notice that they often use it to send me messages in return or complete interpretive assignments using the recording services.