Audio

     I thought that this chapter of Wes Fryer's book, Playing with Media, raised a lot of good points about the benefits of using audio recordings in the classroom. One benefit that I learned was that recording audio of someone is a lot less intimidating than doing video recording. I think that this is important to remember and something that I definitely agree with. I also liked the idea of using audio recording as a way of reflection rather than, for example, journal entries. This would benefit students who do not thrive at writing but still need a medium to articulate their thoughts. I also learned about many of the resources available on the web. I'm hoping to incorporate some of these resources into my classroom, such as StoryCorps, which is a great example of the power of audio.
     The three resources I looked at were StoryCorps, AudioBoom, and iPadio. StoryCorps is a website where you can listen to personal stories told by a wide range of people. I feel like StoryCorps could be used well in an English classroom to show the power of language, as the stories featured are very moving. This website could be paired with podcasts such as The Moth and Risk! in a storytelling unit, where students could also learn to be a good storyteller. AudioBoom is a website that easily allows you to upload video clips to share with others. In the book, Fryer uses an example of his daughter talking about a historical landmark they had visited. This showed how useful AudioBoom can be in sharing feelings and thoughts through audio recording. The last link I explored was iPadio. This website is a "phonecasting" website that allows users to livestream via the phone. I thought that this was very interesting because I had never heard of anything like it. I am interested to see if there's a way for me to use phonecasting in my future classroom.