Here is an excellent gadget to use for recording student voices without having to be tied to the laptop or PC.
The Easi Speak USB mic is a handheld microphone that lets you record directly onto the device, a bit like a dictaphone. They are very portable and would be ideal for taking on school trips.
You can play the recorded files back directly from the microphone (it has a small speaker built in, or you can use the headphone socket) for immediate feedback. Or you can flip the cap off the bottom of the microphone to reveal the USB connector and plug it in to your computer to offload the files.
It has a 128MB memory that can record up to 4 hours of sound. It records in WAV or MP3 format so you can take the files and put them directly into Audacity or similar Editing Software.
It has a built-in rechargeable battery which can be charged through USB. You can buy a small charging hub to charge 5 at the same time.
And the best thing about them is the price. They retail at about £30 each but you can get discounts for buying in packs of 5 or 10. Find out more from the TTS Site.
The sound quality is pretty good. Here’s a demonstration sound file I recorded earlier. For this I held the mic about 20 cm from my mouth, there’s very little distortion:
TTS Easi Speak Demo File – Click to Play
The EasiSpeak does look a little childish in yellow (I think the black one looks quite good) which may put older children off using it – but TTS are producing Easi-Speak Pro which is £10 more but does look a bit more “adult” and less Fisher Price… It also has dual headphone sockets and an input for an external sound source. This is not yet on the TTS site, but should be available soon.
They are a really neat bit of kit,and can have a wealth of uses in the classroom. They would be ideal for podcasting – either by putting the files into Audacity first, or taking the MP3 files straight off the Easispeak and putting onto your school VLE or uploading to a Podcasting site.
The MP3 files could also be attached to an interactive whiteboard file – would be good for recording short sound effects or words that play when they are clicked.
Here’s some other ideas for using them:
- English – Use for role play interviewing, drama-script reading and listening back to recordings.
- Languages – use for role play, oral work – immediate playback to see how they sound.
- Maths – Record in your times table songs and rhymes for all the class to sing to.
- Science – Record sounds from varying distances – how does the sound alter?
- Geography – Interview local residents about issues that concern them with their local environment.
- History – Use on field trips to see how attitudes to popular culture, work and home life have changed.
- Music – Record and listen to music and sounds.
- Citizenship – use for “vox pops” to interview people for their thoughts and opinions on different topics.
They could be used to make audio books, or instructional guides. You might even use them to make revision guides which can be placed onto the school network.
Here’s a link to my podcasting presentation I produced last year which may offer additional ideas.
I’m looking forward to playing with these some more. I’ve bought a set of 5 for my training courses so hopefully I’ll soon have some recordings from teachers that we can share!
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About Me
Danny Nicholson : Educator, Science teacher, ICT Consultant, PGCE lecturer, Author and Web2.0 / SMART Masters/ Interactive Whiteboard Trainer. Contact me for any training requests. 
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Brilliant – thanks for highlighting these Danny – I can see massive potential for them in school – having spoken to the languages department re. creating mp3′s etc. just before the holiday. For those departments for whom audacity is a step to far at the moment – this is a great intermediate step! I have just put a bid in for some as would love to have some in the AST office to loan out to departments and to get some feedback from staff on how used with students.
Cheers Rob. I think they’re excellent. And as you say they will make it possible to record mp3s without the need for audacity.
The fact they have a headphone socket (and their own speaker) also means you can have instant record and playback so for languages you can use them for self-review without even needing to get the files onto a pc.
thanks Danny – excellent little gadget – good quality and the feature set sounds well thought out; just what i’m looking for as part of my daughter’s primary school ICT refit, and the Pro version sounds like it may be of interest to our users collecting oral histories or recording podcasts. Are there any options for setting recording quality, and if so how does this affect available recording time?
only setting I can see is to change between recording as mp3 or wav file. As mp3 you should get 4 hours on each device – which should be plenty.
Just the item I’ve been looking for. Sound quality is fine for my purposes, assessment, story reading, ESL, sound clips from the classroom. Perfectly mobile and easy to use for kinder kids and their teachers. Problem is they don’t ship to Australia and I’m pretty sure they’re not available here, any other suggestions? I use a Samson H4 Zoom but I need something less expensive and more user friendly for some of my colleagues who are keen but clueless.
the other option would be the standard voice recorder / dictaphones on the market. Some info here
Only drawback with the olympus was that it records as wma not mp3 and you need to convert the sound file before it goes into audacity.
Have you contacted TTS direct to see if they would do a deal and ship their mics to Australia?
thanks Danny – direct to mp3 is fine for kids, wav fine for archive. cheers