Record and share an audio message
An audio message is a simple way to welcome your students and create a sense of teacher presence in your subject. Audio recordings can also be used for interviews with guest speakers or can provide a portable alternative to watching a lecture.
Because audio files are generally smaller than video files, students may experience fewer disruptions due to bandwidth and latency issues.
Hardware
Whether you’re planning a series of audio podcasts, want to record a quick video message with your webcam, or provide a narrated slideshow, it always pays to record a quick sound test. to test the quality of your microphone. See how to find a good microphone on video and audio - recording, editing and uploading.
You will also need a laptop, desktop or tablet computer.
Software
It’s possible to record audio messages directly in LMS Announcements, but for audio messages that you want to pre-record and edit there is a variety of software options available.
Step-by-step guide
- Find a quiet place to record.
- Plug in your choice of microphone.
- If you haven’t already, install Universal Capture on your computer.
- Open the Echo360 Universal Capture app and log in with your University of Melbourne account credentials.
- Click the pencil icon next to the Edit capture details text on the top bar.
- Enter a Title and a Description for your message.
- Under Publish To... select the subject you wish to publish the file to. Alternatively you can publish to your Echo360 Library and share it to your subject later.
- Click Save.
- Click the dropdown menu next to the microphone icon and make sure your the correct microphone is selected.
- Switch off the camera and/or screen capture inputs using the dropdown menu on either side of the audio levels meter (the green bars in the middle of the screen).
- Before you click record, speak into the microphone and check the audio levels (the green bars in the middle of the screen) are bouncing up and down and peaking around the 75% mark. If your mic is too loud or too quiet, you can either adjust the distance between the mic and your mouth, or adjust the mic audio levels on your computer operating system (instructions for Mac and PC)
- Click the large red Record button to start the recording.
- You can pause, complete or cancel the recording at any time using the buttons onscreen. Click the square stop button when you’ve finished recording your voice message.
- The audio recording will automatically begin uploading to Echo.
- When the upload is complete, click on Click to View to follow the link to view the audio recording on the Echo website. If you have any difficulties you can log onto Lecture Capture and locate your upload in My Content or your selected subject, then click on it.
- To make quick and simple edits, click on the Media icon and select Edit media and follow the onscreen instructions to trim, top, tail or delete the unwanted section of media. See guide edit a video previously recorded by Lecture Capture.
- To make more extensive edits, consider downloading the media and working on it on the desktop using a free editor like Audacity.
- To Share your audio file with your subject you have the below options:
- If you selected to Publish your Audio file straight to your subject, it will already be available to students in your Lecture Capture link.
- If you uploaded the Audio file to your Library you can use the Share button to share it to the Lecture Capture link in your subject by clicking on Class and selecting the Subject you wish to share the audio to.
If you wish to embed the narrated slideshow presentation on an LMS Page or in an Announcement (note this can only be done with Lecture Captures sitting in your My Content/Library). See guide embed a Lecture Capture recording in your LMS page.
- Click Edit on your Page or Announcement
- Click the Apps button on the far right of the tool bar
- Scroll down to Lecture Capture and click on it
- Find and select your narrated slideshow presentation
- Click Insert and then Save.
Supporting resources
- For recommended hardware and software, see video and audio - recording, editing and uploading.
- See the Learning Environments web page on advice and support for staff moving to online teaching, learning and assessment for detailed information and supporting resources.
- Lecture Capture guides.
This page was last updated on 15 Mar 2024.
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