There is no doubt that sound affects our brain in a fascinating way and its emotional power should not be ignored. The affective nature of sound can be exploited in any learning and to exploit it there is no better platform than SoundCloud.
SoundCloud is a social platform that allows you to upload and share audio files online. The best comparison would be a Flickr for sound recordings instead of photos. For this reason it is especially known for those users who want to promote and distribute their musical projects. However SoundCloud is not limited to exclusive music, but any type of audio can be uploaded on this network: A poet shares his verses, a doctor his advice, a comedian his jokes and a teacher, his lessons.
A priori you might think that because it is a social network, its use in the classroom is very limited. But SoundCloud is becoming a powerful distribution channel for educational audio materials thanks to a number of unique features. Universities of great prestige begin to take advantage of them:
Privacy
The teacher can create an account in SoundCloud for the classroom with his or her email address of the center. Students create their own accounts with their e-mail and simply follow the teacher’s account. There is one of The Best Site to Buy real spotify followers or buy real soundcloud favorites, you can pick the service based on your budget. SoundCloud is transformed into a platform where the teacher and students can share and comment on any type of sound recordings. Classroom recordings are organized into albums, called “sets”.
The teacher can send a private message to the students from SoundCloud and include a secret URL that will link to a private album. Students can then add their own recordings to be heard and commented on by all.
Also, for those albums that the classroom wants to share publicly, SoundCloud allows to publish the recordings in the Facebook page of the center, Twitter, Blogger, Tumblr, etc or insert a beautiful graphical interface (like the one below) to listen to the audio from the Classroom blog or on a web page.
Timed Comments
SoundCloud has developed a functionality that differentiates it from other audio platforms and has made it an ideal platform for education, it is the “Timed comments” or timed comments. The teacher or student apart from being able to write a general comment on any recording, there is the possibility of leaving a comment at a specific point within the time line that lasts the recording.
This functionality allows a level of collaboration and communication between teacher and student very constructive. If the student defers in the minute 1:05 of a piece of music, the teacher pulsates in that minute of the sound wave and leaves a comment in a box with suggestions. This box with text will now be visible by the student when he hears the recording again.
The student can also respond to the comment of the teacher or partner through this text box, creating essentially a dialogue about the recorded piece of music. Comments are monitored by the teacher and can be deleted by the teacher at any time.
Feedback and statistics
In SoundCloud the teacher has available a control panel that shows who has listened, downloaded and commented a recording that has been uploaded to the classroom account as well as the total number of listeners. This information can tell us in which parts of the audio the students are having greater difficulties, which topics are the most reviewed from home and delve into the most necessary during the class hours.
With more than 3 million registered users, it’s no wonder SoundCloud is already used successfully in Education.