As my morning coffee began to cool, I had one teacher after another come to my office to plan the best way to incorporate technology tools in projects they were undertaking. One of these teachers wanted to record her students reading reports they had written, then print QR codes to display. The reports go along with dioramas they created. The QR codes would be posted beside the dioramas, allowing visiting family members to hear the students' audio recordings.
I was familiar with many apps for recording audio. I had recently used Voice Recorder, and liked it well enough to consider it for this project. Unfortunately, the only way to share the recordings was through e-mail, and I wanted to share them with URL links. Admittedly, I was limiting myself to free apps, but one after another there were reasons why they wouldn't fit our needs. I considered websites, like Vocaroo and Recordmp3, but either they required Flash (a no-go on an iPad) or they wouldn't recognize the microphones -- internal and external -- on my device. (I even tried the app Puffin, which opens a browser on the iPad capable of viewing Flash video. Still, no luck.)
So, as we often do when we run into a brick wall, I e-mailed the other ETFs and tapped into their collective experience. One of my colleagues had suggested Vocaroo and even attached a task card. I was just about convinced to scrap the app, and go in this direction with a laptop. Then, another colleague suggested an app I had considered; I just hadn't explored far enough. AudioBoo has a web version that will allow you to create pages (called "boards") that can be shared in a number of ways. Thankfully, one of these ways is by creating a QR code. Bam! Problem solved.
For some strange reason, in most instances, when I reach out to my peers, magically the solution arrives the moment I hit the SEND button. Today I needed a little help from my friends, and I got it!
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