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Audacity for Beginners Download

Description:

This Zipped eXe File provides basic support for practitioners and learners to use Audacity, to produce quality audio files and/or to capture evidence for ePortfolios.

Note: this is aimed at Beginners and does not address all the tools that are available within Audacity; it looks at the portable version of Audacity.  

Audacity empowers all users to...

• produce/record and/or
• 'mix/edit/alter'

...existing audio files at a time and place convenient to them!

Practitioner and/or Learners could use Audacity to assist them in...

• producing web content to... 
  • improve communication and accessibility
  • showcase multimedia produced by practitioners and/or learners
  • meet the Disability Equality Duty (with regards to existing 'dead-tree' - paper-based - documentation)

• Digital story telling (Audio) - the application of technology to the age-old experience of sharing personal narratives.

What is new is the growing availability of sophisticated tools, such as Audacity, as well as a maturing infrastructure to disseminate such content. Audacity empowers practitioners and learners, to 'produce/create' richer digital stories.

Creating and listening to digital stories has the potential to increase the information literacy of a wide range of learners. Moreover, digital stories are ideal for e-portfolios, allowing learners not only to produce reflective journals, but also to create compelling evidence that demonstrate the learner’s progression and/or understanding.

A digital story typically begins with a script. The storyteller (Practitioner/learner) then assembles rich media to support the ideas and emotions in that script, including music or other audio effects. The storyteller pieces together and edits the digital story, creating a short audio, usually about two to four minutes long, in one of various file formats (usually mp3).

What are the downsides?
Many practitioners and/or learners find that piecing together a coherent narrative is considerably more difficult than they thought, and they are not comfortable producing original work are likely to find themselves simply modeling their efforts on digital stories they have come across. Learning providers and learners both need to be aware of intellectual property issues that arise if digital stories include copyrighted music, and/or other audio elements.

• Podcasting - can involve practically anyone with an Internet connection. Part of the appeal of podcasting is the ease with which audio content can be created, distributed, and downloaded from the Web. Professional broadcasters and syndicated radio shows are starting to make their content available as podcasts. Amateurs are flocking to podcasting, sharing their content and opinions. Learning Providers are starting to make content available as podcasts as well.

Podcasting demonstrates the power of audio over text (listening as opposed to reading), allowing podcast users to listen and learn while they walk, jog, ride the bus, or are otherwise away from their computer screen. Perhaps most significantly, podcast technology empowers users to publish audio content directly and seamlessly onto a shared drive, eportfolio, webpage (using eXe), etc.

Podcasts allows education to become more portable than ever before. Podcasting cannot replace the classroom, but it provides learning providers with one more way to meet today’s learners where they “are at home”—on the Internet and on mp3 players. Barriers to adoption and costs are minimal. The tools to implement podcasts, audacity and a microphone, are simple and affordable for learners.

Podcasting allows learners to use their technology-based entertainment systems (iPods, MP3 players) for educational experiences. Because learners are already familiar with the underlying technology, podcasting broadens educational options in a nonthreatening and easily accessible manner. For example, podcasting allows lectures or other course content to be made available to learners if they miss class. Beyond missed lectures, podcasting can provide access to experts through interviews. Podcasting is not limited to content delivered to the learner, however; learners can create their own podcasts—as a record of activities (evidence), a way to compile notes, or a reflection on what they have learned.

What are the downsides? Podcasting is primarily an audio delivery technology and, as such, has limited usefulness for the hearing impaired. Podcasting is not designed for two-way interaction or audience participation. The quality of speakers’ voices, speech patterns, intonations, and other sound effects may not be the same as those of a professional broadcast. Learning providers who wish to record their lectures or other instruction for podcasts may need some training, both in handling an audio-only medium and using the technology.

• producing audio and/or audio enhanced eBooks - eBooks offer new ways for readers to experience and interact with content. An eBook that abandons the notion of reading from front to back, for example, encourages readers to take an active, self-directed role in how they learn, letting them make individual decisions about which path they take through a text. Learners can be offered the option to listen to the text or read it. Audios can be produced by authors, as they proof read their text, using Audacity.

eBooks can use many different file formats, though they all share certain characteristics: they are portable, transferable, and searchable. Electronic media can also incorporate other features, such as annotations, audio and video files, and hyperlinks. eBooks can include commenting and chat tools that allow interaction among readers, and some let users add links to external resources. Some eBook projects are tied to proprietary software, while others provide eBooks in formats such as HTML (eXe is oftenused for the latter).

Compared to printed texts, e-books demand a lower upfront financial commitment, and they often take advantage of online access, (websites/VLEs etc.) which are less expensive than traditional methods of printing handouts and/or notes.

What are the downsides? As with other forms of digital content, eBooks raise questions about copyright, both for producers and consumers. Given the ease with which most kinds of electronic content can be duplicated and disseminated, copyright owners face growing hurdles in protecting their content from unauthorized reproduction. Practitioners who use eBooks in their courses must carefully apply fair use principles. At times, the inclusion of richer media in an e-book is either clunky in its operation or is not well accepted by readers. Although audio and video have the potential to bring a subject alive, multimedia used for its own sake is more likely to annoy users.

• producing audio feedback - within ePortfolios

This Beginners resource provides basic support for practitioners and learners to use Audacity

Submitted On:

17 Aug 2009

File Size:

7,001.55 Kb

Downloads:

1436

File Date:

17 Aug 2009