hearAll - Assessment Recorder from Learning Resources

Learning Resources sent me a hearAll for the purpose of this review.

I wasn't sure what to think when I took the hearAll out of the box. It didn't seem super impressive just looking at it, but like most things, I was wrong to judge a book by its cover. Once I took the hearAll out  for a spin, I was very happy with what I was able to do with it.

Here are some of the things I really like about the hearALL:

- The hearAll has four microphones built in to the device to make sure it captures sound from all locations.

- A quick charging USB connection saves a teacher the hassle of batteries. A complete charge will last for 4 hours. Great for a school day with periodic use.

- Connections to PC and Mac.

- 128MB of flash memory with up to 3 hours of recording space.

- MP3 and WAV file compatibility.

- Pocket size

I get to work with many different types of teachers as a tech guy and lately, I've been working with speech teachers and speech therapists. I see the hearAll as an amazing device that could really help them in their every day job.

One of the speech therapists I work with really wants to record students reading stories and share them with the parents. She has had groups of students sharing a old microphone as they read from a play. It works, but it is complicated as the kids pass the mic around and pause until they are ready to say their lines. With the hearALL, the device could be placed in the middle of the table and the students could read their parts easily. The microphone on the hearALL is strong and the recordings sound great. This could be a huge plus for these teachers.

The hearALL is priced at $99. That might seem expensive, but over time, this will be a very wise investment. The ability to record, save and share student voices has many different applications and a creative teacher and school could get many different uses out of the hearALL.