Synth is a podcasting tool that I’ve used and shared with countless teachers since 2018. Unfortunately, as the title of this post states, the owners of Synth are shutting it down to focus on their new service called Focusable (a cool service that I’ll be writing more about in the next issue of the Practical Ed Tech Newsletter). According to the email sent to users last night, Synth will be shutting down on October 13th. 

If you find yourself now looking for some alternatives to Synth, here are my suggestions for tools to try. 

Simple Audio Recording Tools

Vocaroo
I’ve been using Vocaroo for more than a decade. It’s incredibly simple to use. Just head to the site, click the record button, and start talking. When you’re finished recording hit the stop button. You can listen to your recording before downloading it as an MP3. If you don’t like your recording you can create a new one by just refreshing the Vocaroo.com homepage and starting again.

Online Voice Recorder
Online-Voice-Recorder.com offers the same simplicity of Vocaroo plus a couple of features that I’ve always wished Vocaroo had. One of those features is the ability to pause a recording in progress and resume it when I want to. The other feature is the option to trim the dead air at the beginning and end of a recording.

Twisted Wave
Twisted Wave offers many more features than either of the tools mentioned above. But at it’s most basic level you can still just head to the site, launch the recorder, start talking, and then export your recording as an MP3 all without creating an account on the site. For those who are looking for a way to save audio directly into Google Drive, Twisted Wave offers that capability. 

Watch this video for a short overview of all three of the services mentioned above. 

Podcasting

Anchor is a simple and free platform for recording, editing, and distributing podcasts. Recording on Anchor can be as simple as just holding down the record button on your phone or on your laptop and then releasing it when you’re done talking. Anchor lets you upload external audio files to include in your podcast. Finally, if you want to distribute your podcast to Apple Podcasts (iTunes), Google Podcasts, Spotify (Anchor’s parent company) or any other large podcast networks, Anchor simplifies that process for you. Watch the video here to learn how to publish a podcast through Anchor.

Asynchronous Audio Conversations

Microsoft Flip made its name as a service for teachers and students to use to record and share short videos with each other. But there were some teachers and students who preferred not to appear on camera. To remedy that, for a few years I would recommend that people just cover the webcam when recording. But now Flip has an audio-only recording option. You’ll find that option in the “options” menu that appears when you launch the recorder that is built into Flip. See the screenshot below to locate the audio-only option in Microsoft Flip.
Are you a tech coach or media specialist looking for some new ideas to share with your colleagues? If so, 50 Tech Tuesday Tips is an eBook you need. You can get it right here.