Helpful Digital Guides

Audio Editing with Audacity

Audio recording and editing is a great way to engage students in content other than standard text. Podcasts, audio announcements, and mashups are just a few ways in which audio can be used in a course.

With free tools such as Audacity, even students can contribute to a course in their own "voice".

The following are the basic instructions on how to record and edit audio files in Audacity.

Getting Started with Audacity (Tutorial retrieved from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/)

3 Audacity Tips to Enhance Your Recorded Interviews

The following are some YouTube videos that can assist you with using Audacity.

This video explores how to set-up your preferences and start recording audio.

This video explores mixing with Audacity.

This video explores audio editing with Audacity.

This video reviews amplification, noise removal, chopping your sound clips to the right length, and how to publish your sound clips as mp3s.

Video Editing with Windows Live Movie Maker or iMovie

Adding video to your courses or as options to student assignments is a great way to engage the students in the content. If you have a PC, download Windows Live Movie Maker. While the output format of the video is Windows proprietary .wmv, it still produces a file format that can be uploaded to Blackboard and viewed using Windows Media Player or Quicktime with Flip for Mac installed. It also has a feature allowing you to upload directly to youtube. 

You may find tutorials for Windows Live Movie Maker here:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-live/movie-maker-get-started

http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/guides/Pages/windows-live-movie-maker.aspx

If you have a Mac, it automatically comes with iMovie installed. iMovie help can be found here:

http://www.apple.com/findouthow/movies/

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/iMovie_08_Getting_Started.pdf