Speech tools

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Moodle has no built-in tools for speech messaging or audioconferencing. However, there are various plugins which allow audio conferencing and direct recording into Moodle's text editor. This page will highlight some of the freely available options:

Audio/video conferencing

• A popular free plugin for this is the open source project Big Blue Button It is available from the plugins database https://moodle.org/plugins/browse.php?list=set&id=2 and BigBlueButton supports real-time sharing of slides (including whiteboard), audio, video, chat, and desktops. It also record lectures for later playback.

Direct recording into Moodle

• Poodll is an open source project which allows you to record audio into forums, pages, anywhere with a text editor. Recordings are done via the Poodll server hosted by Amazon and transferred to your Moodle site. The Poodll set of tools (filter, assignment 2.3 type, repository, question type) is available from the plugins database. It is simple to install and doesn't require any particular PHP expertise.
• Mediacapture is a Moodle repository plugin available from the plugins database to record audio/video content using the filepicker. The plugin currently comes with 3 recorders built in - Nanogong (Java Audio recorder), Red5Recorder (Flash Red5 Video recorder) and Flash Audio Recorder. (You don't need to have a Red5video recorder for the audio to work) Here is a screencast of the Media capture repository
• Online audio recorder (Flash). This is a contributed plugin available here: https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=assignment_onlineaudio/. It is an assignment type and uses Flash (10.1+) to allow students to record audio from a microphone; it then converts the file to MP3 format and upload it to Moodle via HTTP POST. Here is a blog post review

Free tools

• for a list of audio tools - duplicates all information below, plus a few more
• COVCELL, an EU-funded project to provide various enhancements for online language learning, including audio conferencing.
  • See also COVCELL discussion forum on moodle.org The audio conferencing will use a RED5 Flash-based server.
• Integration of Moodle with Gong (requires a Java server)
  • NanoGong is Open Source, may require code change of HTML editor
• Integration of Moodle with dimdim open-source webconferencing system. (requires Windows or Linux for the server, Flash+IE/FireFox for the admin and client - still in beta (9 April 2007))
• MoodleSpeex Java applets for voice messaging (note: does not require any modifications/additions to the server setup)
• Audio_in_Moodle#Using_Audacity_to_Convert_audio_and_Record_voice Audacity is Open Source

Commercial tools

• The Horizon Wimba company provides a subscription-based service providing voice tools for use in VLEs. Wimba Voice Tools module has been created in Wimba to integrate into Moodle.

See also

• Audio_in_Moodle
• Portable recording devices
• MP3 player

• List of audio tools in Audio in Moodle