Elementary Students Learn How to Make Audiobooks!

We recently had the pleasure of hosting students from two elementary schools in Austin, TX and Princeton, NJ. A great day was had by all.  The excitement was contagious as they entered the building.  You could see the wonder on their faces, as they are so familiar with Learning Ally and how much it impacts their day to day accomplishments at school. Without you volunteers, none of this would be possible!  Here’s a look into each school visit, and what the students were able to experience while they were here. 

Highland Park Elementary Students, Austin TX

On February 27th, 32 students and 6 teachers, parents and school administrators visited the Austin studio to learn about how our audio books get from volunteer’s voices/home studios into the app they use to listen to their books.  

The students listened to the history of Learning Ally, back to 1948 when we were called Recording for the Blind and recorded material onto flexible record albums.  They saw how we have kept up with technology over the years through reel-to-reel, cassettes and CD’s and now to the Learning Ally Link App.  They watched a video showing how our books are chopped and scanned to make the PDF and EasyBooks files our volunteers use to read.  They learned how volunteers can now work anywhere in the world to help record their books thanks to our virtual technology!

Highland Park students are experts at using the Link App, so they enthusiastically helped staff demonstrate how to search for and download books, find chapter headings, page numbers and change the speed of the audio and the color of the text on the screen.  

Students got to step into our old recording booths and make a recording on a Learning Ally Flash Drive to take home to their family.

Austin volunteers Kathi Jensen and Robert Miller helped staff members Cheri Nightingale and Gigi Franklin with the tour.  One little girl told us “This is the best field trip we have ever taken!”  Their two hours at the studio flew by, but their enthusiasm for reading will last a lifetime.  They all gathered in the studio conference room before getting back on the bus and yelled “THANK YOU!” to all the volunteers around the world who help brings books to life for them.  

Village Elementary School, Montgomery NJ

On January 24^th, we had an amazing group of students from Village Elementary School, visit us and get to experience firsthand how an audio book is made from beginning to end!   They were able to experience LINK and be “testers” with some new advanced features coming up!

The students had an opportunity to meet learn about guide dogs, and how they are trained to lead the blind and visually impaired around obstacles.  Abigail Shaw, a Learning Ally staff member was gracious enough to bring her guide dog Kit, for the students to meet.  This was a huge hit with everyone, and it helped bring an understanding how important these companions are!

We had a great voice over session, where students recorded a clip of a short story of their choice and brought it home on a flash drive for their parents to listen to! They were so proud of themselves and loved hearing their voices on the recordings! 

It was a great day that couldn’t have been possible without the help of our wonderful staff and volunteers that joined us for this impactful event.  A special thank you to Maryfran Annese and Joe Clark for making a special trip to Princeton to join the fun! 

It’s been a great week at Learning Ally!

Our readers increased to 191,499, with 37,212 at frequency* and over 111 million pages read!

Pages read increased by 74% over last year for school readers.

It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words….and a video is worth even more!  Check out this video where Learning Ally Mom Karen tells us why our work is so important to her family:

https://youtu.be/7e_bWTHCPc8

*at frequency = students are reading books multiple times during the school year, with a general target of thirty times (more for lower grades, less for upper grades).  Our data shows that most of these students read for at least 20 minutes each time.