Teaching and Learning with Audio
A Technology Demonstration
Henry E. Schaffer
Professor Emeritus of Genetics and Biomathematics
Coordinator of Special IT Projects & Faculty Collaboration/ITD
Interim Director Emeritus, LTS/DELTA
Convergence of technological progress
Old technology:
- Studio
- Rack of Audio Gear
- Digitization equipment
- Compression software
- Technician
- Media production
Today - Affordable, Convenient, Fast:
- High speed communications - broadband
- Storage
- Digitization/compression equipment/hardware/firmware/software
- No requirement for media production
Demo
My Gadget:
- many competing products - but I wanted/needed the capabilities of
this one
- widely
available
- records from many sources - directly to .mp3
- AM/FM radio (built-in)
- microphone (built-in or external)
- "line" (i.e. any audio output)
- plays from:
- AM/FM radio (built-in)
- storage (.mp3 files)
- listen on: speaker (built-in), ear-buds (supplied), headset, line out, ...
Recorded/compressed files (.mp3) can be up/down-loaded to computer over
USB port, and then distributed by a web page, podcasting/RSS, CD, ...
Editing audio files - using software on the computer. Many
options. I use the Open Source Audacity program.
Count Edited count - rather odd
Lots of choices - few are critical.
E.g. recording rates - worry about choose from many - or just use
32kbps, and see if that's good enough sound quality. If not, go faster.
Accessibility
Audio is an accessibility barrier for hearing impaired-people.
Transcript - for words
"Comparable experience" for non-verbal - (what is that?)
Automated speech-to-text conversion - it's getting better!
Other Resources
- MediaSource A
Multimedia Depository managed by Hal Meeks.
Some of my personal
musing (blogging) on this topic.
Copyright 2006 by Henry E. Schaffer
Comments and
suggestions are welcome, and should go to hes@ncsu.edu
Last modified 5/19/2006
Disclaimer - Information is provided for your use. No endorsement
is implied.