Adding audio comments to Moodle

I have been playing around with ways to provide students with audio feedback. There are many options for this - I was looking for something simple. I wanted a way to comment on something either to the entire class, or to students individually. Here's what I came up with, with assistance from the helpful folks in my Educational Technology Resource Centre.

I began by recording the comment using Windows Sound recorder - located in the Accessories folder when you click on "All Programs". Sound Recorder in Vista allows for recordings over 5 minutes in duration (previous Windows operating systems limited recording duration to 5 minutes). There is no editing of saved files allowed, but if your recordings are brief it's probably easier to redo them anyway if you need to change something. Save the resulting file on your hard drive. It will be a .WAV file, and you can listen to it using Windows Media Player.

To make a comment you want the whole class to be able to hear, you will need to upload your file to Moodle. Ideally, you want the file to be embedded in a resource or activity so that students can see it and click on it in one step without having to download the audio file.

Before you embed the file, you may have to reformat it. Our version of Moodle does not support WAV files, and I was required to convert the file to MP3 format. This was very easy - just download Switch Audio File Converter by NCH Software, and you can convert the file in one step.

Now upload the audio file to Moodle. You can place it in any resource or activity that has an html editor. All you have to do is select the text where you want the file to appear and insert the file, as I've done here in  Label. Find the insert link icon in the editor:

Because you are inserting a file from your computer rather than a URL, you have to browse to find the file:

Click the Browse button to locate your file, then click Upload ,

and wait for the message that Moodle has successfully uploaded your file. Then click on the file, and the link will be embedded wherever you selected it to appear in the first place.

At my institution, there is an embedded audio player in Moodle that automatically plays the file when the student clicks on the link:

If you want your comments to go to students individually, you have several options. You could create a Group for each student in the class using auto-create - each student would be the only person in his/her group. Then create a Forum called Feedback or Comments, with Separate Groups - this way no student can see any other Groups. Then upload your audio comment file for each student to his/her Discussion forum as a new topic. This gives the two of you a way to have a private conversation about the comments if necessary. You can subscribe students to the Forum so that they each receive an email whenever you leave them a comment.

You could use the wiki or assignment modules in much the same way to provide students with individual feedback.

You may get feedback from your listeners about the quality of your sound recordings - if you have static, hissing noises, or the volume needs to be turned right up, you might want to adjust your input recording levels. I created my first comment without any sound adjustment - just opened Sound Recorder, put my headset on and started talking. It wasn't bad - certainly good enough - and when you are used to the procedure, you can play with the levels if necessary.

This was a very easy and straightforward way to add audio comments to Moodle. There are numerous other ways to insert audio comments in your online teaching - what are some of the other methods that have worked for you?