The "Record Audio" icon in Moodle's editor allows Instructors and Students to record audio clips in resources or activities.
Using the "Record Audio" button in the Moodle editor toolbar, Students or Teachers can add audio clips to resources (Labels, Pages, etc.) or to Discussion Forum posts. Students can also to record and upload audio as their submission for an assignment activity.
Not All Browsers are Supported...
"Record audio" doesn't work with every web browser from every vendor.
The technology used by "Record Audio" is called "RecordRTC". RecordRTC uses the OGG audio format internally to record your voice.
About 60% of browsers available have implemented the technologies needed to use RecordRTC.
- Firefox, Chrome, Android, Edge, and Opera do support RecordRTC
- iOS devices do not support the OGG audio format, and cannot save OGG audio (as of March 2023).
Using the "Record Audio" tool in iOS
Audio recordings created using the Record audio toolbar button with an iOS devce are not playable. Record Audio (via the "RecordRTC" plugin) saves audio in the OGG audio format, but Macintosh iOS does not recognize OGG, so users of iOS devices (iPhone or iPad) cannot play back their audio clips after recording them using the "Record audio" toolbar button in Moodle's editor.
As a system-wide work-around, eLSupport has added a plugin that works behind-the-scenes to automatically convert OGG audio files into the M4A audio format.
Using your iPhone or iPad, after you record an audio clip using "Record audio" and save your completed resource, your new OGG audio file gets saved with the resource.
To see how it works, try the following steps:
- Create a new Label, and expand the toolbar
- Click on the "Record audio" toolbar button, and record a brief clip
- Click "Attach recording" to save the recording to your resource. You'll see a player appear in the editor window.
- Click the "Manage files" icon. You will see that a new OGG audio file exists in your resource. This is the audio you just recorded.
- Click the "HTML" toolbar icon, and you'll see the HTML source code generated to present the OGG audio file.
- Click "Save and return to course". (Your item gets saved to Moodle's database.)
- Edit the item again to return to the editor. Open the "Manage files" button again. You may see the original OGG audio file, and you'll now see a new M4A audio file. This is what has been automatically created by eLSupport's conversion plugin.
When played back on an iOS device, the M4A audio file will play for the users automatically (even though the HTML audio player code still references the original OGG file).
If you need an alternative way to record audio...
You can also use a web-based recording service like Record MP3 Online to record spoken audio and download it as an MP3 audio file. That MP3 file can be added as a Feedback file when grading Student assignments, or can be uploaded to your Moodle course as a media file in a page, label, or other Moodle content. (The student would click on the file's link and download it and listen on their computer or mobile device.)
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