Quick overview: The SoundJay (www.soundjay.com) website contains hundreds of pre-recorded sound effect files that can be downloaded to be used within your SMART Notebook presentations. Easy and quick. No registration required!
How can it be used in the classroom? Sounds from this site can be used within the SMART Notebook software so that if your student taps on an image or word, they will hear a specific sound effect played back. The SoundJay site includes sound categories such as button beeps, background, human, household, machine, mechanical, nature, transportation, music tracks, and more. The sounds on the site are free of charge and royalty free for typical classroom use. For more specific information in regards to the legalities, you may want to read the terms of use on the SoundJay website.
Video Tutorial: For a quick tour of the SoundJay website, I’ve created an on-line video tutorial which can be viewed below:
How do I insert these sounds into my SMARTBoard presentations? If you’d like to know how to insert these sounds into your SMART Notebook presentations, please refer to my other ICT Blog posting on inserting pre-recorded sounds into your SMART Notebook presentations.
How does this compare to other sound effect websites? For regular readers of my blog, you may recall that I wrote about the Freesound Project website in a previous blog posting. To compare the two websites, the SoundJay website provides the advantage of allowing you to download sound effects WITHOUT having to first setup an account. In addition, sound files on the SoundJay site are all available in MP3 format which are guaranteed work with the SMART Notebook software. On the flip side, the Freesound Project website allows you to search for specific sounds by keyword and has a much larger library of sounds to choose from. The SoundJay website only allows you to browse by category – no keyword searching allowed! My advice? Use both!
