SpeakPipe Voice Recorder - A Quick Way to Create MP3 Recordings

Earlier this week I wrote about SpeakPipe's updated widget for receiving voicemail through your blog. SpeakPipe offers another free tool for recording. SpeakPipe's Voice Recorder is a free tool for quickly creating an MP3 voice recording in your web browser on a laptop, Chromebook, Android device, or iOS device.

To create a recording with the SpeakPipe Voice Recorder simply go to the website, click "start recording," and start talking. You can record for up to five minutes on the SpeakPipe Voice Recorder. When you have finished your recording you will be given an embed code that you can use to place it in your blog or website. You will also be given a link to share your recording. Click the link to share your recording and that will take you to a page to download your recording as an MP3 file.

Applications for Education
SpeakPipe's Voice Recorder does not require you to register in order to create and download your audio recordings. The lack of a registration requirement makes it a good choice for students who don't have email addresses or for anyone else who simply doesn't want to have to keep track of yet another username and password.

Students could use SpeakPipe's Voice Recorder to record short audio interviews or to record short audio blog entries.

Teachers could use SpeakPipe's Voice Recorder to record instructions for students to listen to in lieu of having a substitute teacher read instructions to their students.

The Week in Review - Fun & Learning in Alberta

Good morning from the Edmonton International Airport. This week I had the opportunity to speak at the 21st Century Technology and Learning Symposium in Ponoka, Alberta. This was at least my 15th time visiting Alberta. As always, it was a great experience. A big thank you to my hosts and to everyone who came to one or more of my presentations. Meeting teachers from all over the world is one of the true pleasures that has come from writing maintaining this blog over the last eight years.

Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. 7 Tools for Adding Questions and Notes to Videos
2. Quick Rubric Provides an Easy Way to Craft Rubrics
3. 151 Practical Ed Tech Tips
4. Life on Minimum Wage - An Economics Lesson
5. Sorting TED-Ed Lessons by Grade Level
6. Coggle - Mind Mapping With Instant Messaging
7. My Reading Mapped is Back!

Would you like to have me speak at your school or conference?

Click here to learn about my professional development services. 

Please visit the official advertisers that help keep this blog going.

Practical Ed Tech is the brand through which I offer PD webinars.

BoomWriter provides a fantastic tool for creating writing lessons. 

Storyboard That is my go-to tool for creating storyboards and cartoon stories.

HelloTalk is a mobile community for learning a new language.
MasteryConnect offers a series of apps for identifying standards. 

Discovery Education & Wilkes University offer online courses for earning Master's degrees in Instructional Media.

PrepFactory offers a great place for students to prepare for SAT and ACT tests.

The University of Maryland Baltimore County offers graduate programs for teachers.

Boise State University offers a 100% online program in educational technology.

EdTechTeacher is hosting host workshops in six cities in the U.S. in the summer.

SeeSaw is a great iPad app for creating digital portfolios.

Lesley University offers online education programs for teachers.

HelpTeaching offers online tests and printable resources for teachers.  

King University offers online M.Ed programs.

Google Keep for iOS - Organize Ideas and Task Lists

Google Keep is one of my favorite Android apps. I use it for setting reminders and creating task lists on my phone. Occasionally, I'll even use it to organize my thoughts in a series of sticky notes.

This week Google made Keep available as an iOS app. The iOS version of Keep works just like the Android and Chrome versions. On Google Keep you can create sticky notes to use simple text notes, as bookmarks, or as reminders with dates and times. You can color code your notes and arrange them by dragging and dropping them into any order you like. And like most things in your Google Account all of the notes in your Google Keep account will sync across all of your devices.


Applications for Education
Using the color-coding aspect of notes in Google Keep could be a nice way for students to construct an outline for a research paper or presentation.

Google Keep can be an excellent to-do list app for students. Students can color code notes, make lists, and share notes.

Best of the Web - Autumn 2015

This morning at the 21st Century Technology and Learning Symposium in Ponoka, Alberta I gave the latest version of my popular Best of the Web presentation. The presentation included some old favorites mixed with some new favorites. Some of the old favorites in the slides continue to update which is why they continue to be in this slide deck. The slides are embedded below.


If you would like to me speak at your event, please click here for more information.

My Reading Mapped is Back!

At about this time two years ago I wrote a post about a great collection of Google Maps and Earth files called My Reading Mapped. Suddenly, six months ago it went offline. This morning I received an email from the developer of My Reading Mapped. The email was an announcement that he has relaunched the site.

On My Reading Mapped you will find KML files (AKA Google Maps & Earth files) for things like historical migration and trade routes, monarchies and republics, famous explorer and conqueror expeditions, and climate change patterns. More than 150 maps are available to download from My Reading Mapped.

Applications for Education
My Reading Mapped is a great resource for social studies teachers to bookmark and share with students. The maps offer an excellent alternative to reading out of a textbook because students can not only read the information they can also quickly explore the areas that they are reading about.