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Audacity is free, easy-to-use Windows and Macintosh software which schools can easily and successfully utilise to record and edit audio. Teachers and students can use Audacity to:

· read and record their own stories to accompany PhotoStory or PowerPoint slideshow,

· record and produce a ‘radio show’ or podcast,

· record singing, choirs, music groups and musical instruments,

· record sounds e.g. sounds in the playground, classroom, in nature,

· generate special sound effects,

· create a narration for a multimedia slideshow,

· edit a recorded interview,

· cut, copy, splice and mix sounds together,

· experiment with sounds and sound waves,

· change the speed or pitch of a recording, and

· edit MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files.

Download at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/ It also has a range of professional features, which include:

· built-in effects processing,

· mixing of tracks, and

· recording overdubs while playing previously recorded tracks.

Audacity can record live audio through a microphone, line input or other source. It has Level meters which can monitor volume levels before, during and after recording. You can import sound files, edit them and combine them with other files or new recordings. Export your recordings in several common file formats e.g. wav, mp3. These can be used to accompany PowerPoint presentations, PhotoStory movies or used in video production. Editing is easy with Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete. You can edit and mix an unlimited number of tracks. Fade the volume up or down smoothly with the Envelope tool. It also has a range of built-in effects e.g. Echo, Phaser and Reverse. Sample rates and formats are converted using high-quality resampling and dithering.

All you need is to download the software, access a microphone and away you go!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 7th, 2008 at 4:12 pm and is filed under Integration, Learning and Teaching, Literacy and tagged Literacy, multimedia, sound. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.