Conversations

This is a free service called Conversations. I found out about this from a previous ITSer last week at our ActivLoudoun Plus conference. The thing I like most about this program is that it can be used at home or school, seems to have unlimited storage space, and is very easy to use! Oh, and did I mention it is FREE!?!? As a teacher, that is like music to my ears.

To use it, click Allow in the pop up box. Then, just log in with your name (don't worry, you don't have to save at the end). Click the Real Time button. You will see a video of me and you should hear me talking to you. Of course, my laptop hates recording, so the sound is not very loud or clear (sorry!). Once my question is over, it will start recording your response. When you finish your response, click Stop Recording. You will then see me again and hear a second question. I have three questions set up. You don't have to actually say or do anything of course. At the end of my third question, you will have to click Stop Recording and then Cancel. If you click Submit, it saves your recording (and if you have a webcam, your video too) and I can go log on to the website and see/hear it. The nice thing about listening to the responses is that you can skip listening/watching yourself and only see the student response. Pretty neat, eh?

This is going to be used a lot at my school next year, by me! I love the idea of having a real "conversation" with each of my students like this. I could even have a native speaker make the videos and then this becomes even more authentic.