Using cell phones as voice recorders for digital storytelling

Tuesday, June 2nd 2009 by Wes FryercloseAuthor: Wes Fryer Name: Wes Fryer
Email: wes@isteconnects.org
Site: http://www.speedofcreativity.org
About: Wesley is an international learning consultant, author, digital storyteller, educator and catalyst for educational reform focused on blended learning, differentiated instruction, and creative engagement. His bio is available on www.wesfryer.com/bio and complete vitae on www.wesfryer.com/vitae.See Authors Posts (74)

A variety of web services continue to emerge which offer voicemail to mp3 recording functionality, but drop.io is the only one of which I’m aware currently that provides a generous amount of free recording time. For teachers and students creating digital stories or interested in assessment methods which use cell phones or regular land land phones to record and share digital audio, this is great news. Drop.io offers a lot more functionality than just phone-based audio recording, but as a digital storytelling advocate that is the functionality about which I am most enthused. Gabcast and GCast are other websites offering users the ability to call a phone number and have a message automatically recorded and posted online, but both Gabcast and Gcast are now commercial-only (paid) web services. Drop.io offers additional storage for very reasonable prices, but basic site functionality (including phone-based audio recording to downloadable and embeddable mp3 formatted files) is available free.

original photo by Milica Sekulic

Cindy Shirley’s video, “My Friendship Story,” is an example of a digital story created using drop.io for audio recording, Audacity software, and PhotoStory3. It was told from the perspective of Sacajawea about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. This was created for our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices digital storytelling project. All of Cindy’s audio was recorded with drop.io. Cindy is a teacher in Stratford, Oklahoma.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Thomas Sheppard is a junior high technology teacher in Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada. Last week he shared a session on using drop.io with other teachers during a professional development day, and posted his session handout (in MS Word format) to his blog. This five page handout provides a good introduction to drop.io and how it can be used as a virtual “inbox” for students turning in their work to their teachers.

Drop.io provides 100 MB or approximately 450 minutes of free recording time to users. To learn more, check out my May 17, 2009, podcast, “Comparing Drop.io and Gabcast for Cell Phone Digital Recording.” Kansas educators Dean Mantz and Brian Richter also discussed drop.io on May 2, 2009, at the PodStock Conference in Wichita. Links from their session are available, as well as a podcast audio recording.

Similar Posts:

• Cell Phones as Audio Recorders
• Ask students to submit an assignment on their cell phone
• Tips for advanced Audacity editing
• CourseCasting Pre-AP Math in Oklahoma
• Learning about Immigration and Family Heritage via Digital Storytelling