Learning Ally Audio App Now Free

Learning Ally Audio App Now Free

Glow Serly    Juli 23, 2012    Comment   

Learning Ally, the audio book service for people with disabilities, has reduced the cost of their iOS app to free. The app previously cost $19.99. In order to use the app you must be a Learning Ally member. Click here to download the app which is compatible with both the iPad and iPhone. The app is the easiest way to listen to Learning Ally books on your iOS device. Now that the app is free it is a no brainer for members.

Unfortunately the app is still missing key features such as background audio play back, background downloads and the ability to browse the Learning Ally catalog directly from your iOS device. When listening to an audio book you cannot follow along with an ebook because the audio book will automatically pause. Also in order to download an audio book you first must add the book to your bookshelf via a web browser. These short comings weaken the user experience, but it is still great to listen to Learning Ally books on your iOS device.  Hopefully in time the app will be updated with these and other features. To learn more about Learning Ally click here. Click read more below to view screen shots of Learning Ally Audio in action.

My Personal Best

My Personal Best

Sardi    Juli 29, 2008    Comment   

I've been blogging on this site now for just over a year, so I thought that just before I head off on my holiday for a couple of weeks, I would leave you with what I feel were some of my best postings over the last year or so.

Creating audio-visual monologues
Back in April 2007 I wrote about a nice bit of free recording and lip syncing software that enables students and teachers to create small animated flash characters like this one.

Interactive presentations
Back in September 2007 I discovered Voice Thread and wrote a tutorial and some teaching tips and some ideas for how to use it.

Creating a mobile phone website
In October 2007 I wrote about how to create your own mobile phone based community using Winksite. This included a demo tutorial as well as an example site for you to try out.

Exploiting two computer-based RPGs
In November 2007 I created some tutorials and teaching materials based around two online Role playing games (RPGs) and looked at how thee could be used for EFL/ ESL.

3B Village 3D browser
In December 2007 3B Village added lots of new functionality to there 3D collaborative web browser and this inspired some teaching tips and ideas based around that.

Soundscapes from Soundtransit
In March 2008 I wrote about a wonderful site for sharing and downloading audio files. I really enjoyed this site as it inspired quite a few teaching ideas and tips.

Iconic teen video
From April 2008 I thought that my best posting was a look at the kinds of videos teens are watching on YouTube and the new micro-genres that are developing through that medium.

Immersive Image Environments
In May I discovered one of my favourite browser plugins and one which I still enjoy everyday- PicLens. I wrote some suggestions showing just how useful i thought it could be in class.

Create your own social network 7 steps
Lastly, in June of this year I wrote about creating a social network using Ning. This was a real learning experience for me and I tried to share some of what I had learned from creating a network for a project i have been working on.

I hope you have enjoyed at least some of these postings. I've certainly enjoyed and learned a lot from producing them.

Anyway, I'm off on holiday for the next couple of weeks and will be back with more mid to late August.

Best wishes

Nik Peachey

Dictation goes Web 2.0

Dictation goes Web 2.0

Sardi    Juni 05, 2008    Comment   

Yes and why not? Seems hard to see how this would be accomplished but it certainly does seem to be the case at the Listen and Write - Dictation website. What's more it seems to have been done in a pretty impressive way too.

This site features quite a number of audio files all of which can be accessed through quite a cleverly designed dictation activity. The users get to listen to parts of a sentence and they then have to type in the words of the sentence to a text field which only allows the words if they are correct. They are able to listen over and also get some help by setting the activity to auto complete the words as they type them in (cuts down on the frustration for EFL students of not being able to spell what you can hear).

The other nice aspect of it is that you get a score as you go and so you can work against yourself to try to improve the score.

But where's the Web 2.0 bit?
Well anyone who registers can link to an audio file for use in the activities. As a registered user you can also take on the task of adding the transcript etc. This can be a great way of sharing what must be quite a lot of work. Anyway, watch this video to see it in action.



How to use this with students

• Just your EFL students registered and sit them with some headphones to work through a few dictations
• Get your students to add some audio files that they would like turned into dictation activities
• Add some of your own audio and transcripts that you want students to work on

What I like about it

• This is really good free listening practice for students
• Great for use in a media centre or to set listening homework for students to do on their own (they can tell you their scores in class)
• Nicely designed activity with well thought out prompts
• Great that it plans to include other languages
• Great that the work load is being shared out and that users can add links to audios they want someone to transcribe
• The texts have been leveled according to difficulty

What I'm not so sure about

• I didn't manage to find a privacy policy on the site, so I wonder what they do with my info once they have it!
• Most of the texts are quite high level and grabbed from Voice of America news, so are also on some quite heavy news topics.
  
• Some more exercise types would be great, though they may be coming
• I wonder who is going to be willing to put the time into transcribing the audio files (bit cynical I know but teachers are seldom sitting around with a lot of time on their hands)

On the whole I think this is a really simple, but really great idea. This site has huge potential for language development and I hope the the people at Listen and Write can keep this going and that your students find it really useful.

Best

Nik Peachey