January 3, 2010

Myna - recording yourself

I had already heard about Myna but hadn't tried it out. I normally use audacity for my recordings but today it was time to give it a go. First, I read a post written by José Picardo some time ago, watched the demo which is below and tried it myself.

Watch the demo


I wanted to see how easy or how hard it was to mix your voice with background music and to my surprise it's not that hard. I had a look at the library tracks, chose some of them, recorded myself saying some collocations you normally find in books teaching EFL at basic levels and mixed it up.

Don't expect a masterpiece, it was just a first (lousy) trial.

After you save it, you can embed the recording as below, or grab the URL http://aviary.com/artists/anamariacult/creations/collocations_basic_1


If the recording doesn't play, CLICK HERE.

What I like about it:
  • It's free.
  • There's no need to download anything.
  • You can upload a pre-recorded file or record yourself straight in the site.
  • There's a library of background music you can use to make your mix.
  • It's not complicated.
  • It offers an embed code for your mix.
How can we use MYNA w/ students?
  • record tracks with vocabulary you want students to memorize.
  • record your students repeating vocabulary or collocations and then mix it up w/ music and play it for them.
  • make a different kind of dictation w/ background music.
  • simply use the site to record your students reading a text or dialogue.
  • ask your students to create a mix with a list of words they have to memorize.
Any other ideas? Use the comment area to collaborate w/ more ideas.

1 comment:

Maureen Tumenas said...

I gave Myna as a choice for an audio project with my 8th graders this year. Many are familiar with garageband (We are a PC school) so thy needed no instruction to get right to work. It was easy to use and many students preferred it over audacity because of the library on loops included.