iPod touch. Touching student lives in the classroom.

Before the iPod touch, several older models of the iPod supported recording capabilities. While recording is not a factory built-in option on the iPod touch, using iPods as mobile recording devices have and will be continue to be a popular practice by educators and students alike that makes good sense.

Whether its for capturing a lecture or conducting a podcast interview in the field, there are many times when recording audio on your iPod touch is handy and convenient. Couple this fact with its small size, durable form factor, large storage capacity, and ease of use, iPods are one of the best portable recording devices around!

Second Generation iPod touch: Recording is Back!
When Apple released the second generation iPod Touch, it gained a relatively unknown but important feature that was not available in the first generation of iPod touches: the ability to record audio! Using just a supported external microphone you must provide as well as one of the excellent voice recording apps from the App Store and you have all you need start recording with your iPod touch.

To use the recording capabilities of the iPod touch, one needs to attach a microphone to your iPod touch since there is not one built-in. One way this can be done is with a headphone or earphone with microphone capabilities that is plugged into the audio output jack of the iPod touch. While you can purchase the optional Apple Earphones with Remote and Mic ($29) to get the necessary hardware you need to start recording, there are lots of other options that will work for equipping the iPod touch for recording.

For example, several educators who use the iPod touch for language acquisition have found success with the Shure MPA-3C Music Phone Adapter for iPhone . This device attaches to the audio out jack on your iPod touch and features an inline microphone. To use it, you just plug your iPod touch earbuds (or any other headphones for that matter) into the device and then just plug the device right into the audio out jack of your iPod touch. The Shure Music Phone Adapter for iPhone can ordered at many locations online and retails for around $32.

Another microphone option for the iPod touch which has offers some extra functionalty beyond a microphone adapter and has received great reviews is the Griffin SmartTalk by iPod accessories maker Griffin Technology. This headphone adapter, which started life as an iPhone adapter, lets you use any earphones you want with your iPod touch but retain all the functionality of your iPod as well! When you’re listening to music on your iPod with the SmartTalk, its control button lets you Play, Pause, and Skip forward tracks without using the touchscreen!

Since the SmartTalk records very clear audio as a microphone for your iPod, as well as allows you track control music playback on your iPod, this may be another good option you may want look into since its around $20 and can be quite handy if you play to use your iPod touch quite a bit a music player in addition to a recording device!

For an even more reasonable option, some educators have found success with a similar microphone adapter, the Philips iPhone Microphone Adapter. This device look and works exactly like the Shure Music Phone Adapter for iPhone but only costs about $10! The only disadvantage of this device is that is sometimes hard to find since it can only be purchased at Target retail stores.

Interestingly, according to sources at Apple, if you have software version 2.2 or newer on your iPod touch, you can now use some of the older 30-pin style recording microphones for recording as well! If you have one, try it out and you may not need to buy anything at all if you have an older iPod microphone and want to start recording on your iPod touch!

Playback of audio on the second generation iPod touch has also bee made easy since theses iPod feature a built-in speaker which make it possible to hear your recordings when headphones or earbuds are not attached! The external volume controls on the iPod touch 2G also make it easy to physically adjust the volume level come from the device without using the touchscreen of the device.

While there are a host of free applications out there for recording on iPod touch, some standout among others. One of the easier to use and newer recording app that is iTalk Recorder by Griffin Technology, famous maker of all sort of microphones and other accessories for iPods, iPhone, and Mac OS X computers. iTalk Recorder is free since it does have a small ad strip at the bottom of the interface but it features the same feature as the paid $5 version of iTalk Recorder Premium.

What makes iTalk Recorder such a great voice recording app is its elegant interface that offers real ease of use as well as a wealth of options you may be surprised to see in a free application.

To record, you first you choose a recording quality either Good, Better, or Best and then simply tap the large, red Press To Record button. (You can give the recording a name before or after recording.) The button then changes to a large green Recording button that indicates you are Recording. Below the button you will see the current recording time as well as a visual level meter. This is an excellent feature you won't find in many free voice recorders that is very important since it lets you see that audio is being captured and that it will be heard after you have recorded it.

Finally, at the bottom of the recording screen, you will see a live-updating indicator of the recording’s file size, the recording quality, and the date and time the recording was started.

To stop recording, you just tap the Recording button. If you want to add to the current recording, just tap the Record button again; the new audio will be appended to the end of the file. Otherwise, tap Done to save the file and view the list of recordings stored on your iPod.

There are a few real nice features of iTalk Recorder that make it such a great voice recorder. Here are a few that we have found that make iTalk Recorder a stand above other free recorder that are avaliable:

1. The application screen can auto-rotate 180 degrees. This is nice since it allows you view the screen properly even if you turn your iPod touch upside down so the microphone port will be on top of the device!
2. While recording, you can can turn off the screen (by pressing the Sleep/Wake button) and the app still records. The lets you greatly prolong battery life during recording, especially for lengthy recording such during a long lecture or inteview.
3. You can append onto any existing recording just by selecting it and then continuing to record using the Record screen. This is nice if you want to cut out breaks in a recording session without have to start a new recording each time!

Recording length is limited only by the available space on your Pod touch and your recordings are stored in AIFF format and captured in mono. While some may criticize that the app does not record in stereo, the sound quality is impressive even at the lower settings and completely acceptable for voice recording.

To view your recordings, iTalk Recorder displays all your stored recordings in a neatly arranged alphabetical list. Each entry includes the recording’s date and time, size, and length. A play button next to each lets you listen to the recording using headphones or your iPod's speaker. Tapping a recording’s arrow button reveals information about the file where you can either rename it and even add some notes about the recording!

To delete a recording, you switch to Edit mode at the top of the screen and hit the Delete badge that appears next to the recording, From there, the deleted recordings are moved to a Deleted Recordings area. You can use this screen either undelete recordings or permanently remove them from your iPod.

Getting the recordings from our iPod to your computer, it is just as easy and using the app itself. For this task, you need the free iTalk Sync companion utility, a handy program that lets you use WiFi to transfer recording from your iPod touch directly into your Mac. To use it, you just install it on your Mac, launch the app, and follow these simple steps:

1. Launch just iTalk Recorder on your iPod touch and then launch iTalk Sync on your computer.
2. Next, select your iPod in iTalk Sync’s device list and then tap Yes on the iPod's screen to allow iTalk Sync to connect to your iPod.
3. Your recordings will now appear in iTalk Sync. From there, you can just drag them to a folder or the Desktop to copy them anywhere you want on your computer.
4. Clicking on the Info button in iTalk Sync displays additional information about the selected recording, including the file quality and any notes you added on the iPhone or iPod touch. Since iTalk Sync is reading the files from your iPod, keep in mind that you can’t rename recordings or delete recording in iTalk Sync; you must perform these tasks on the iPod touch itself.

With its impressive features and ease of use, iTalk Recorder is definitely worth a look if you are looking for a free recording application for iPod touch. If you need more organizational tools in your audio recording workflow, you will probably need to look at a paid application. This is where a tool like SpeakEasy Voice Recorder can fit your needs nicely.

If you are in need of a more feature-rich application or plan to do a lot of recording on your iPod touch, SpeakEasy Voice Recorder is one of the more polished and professional-looking options available that you should consider. For a mere $2 investment, SpeakEasy offers not only excellent voice recording capabilities also some extras that make recordings easier to much manage and organize that you will find in many other audio recorders for the iPod touch.

Using SpeakEasy is easy. When you open the program, its simple "Studio” screen appears with a nice large icons for each mode of the application. The first one is a large green Microphone button that you can tap to start recording. A level meter lets you track your audio levels and one of the nicest features of the recording screen is that you can also pause and resume recording by tapping the pause button which appears to the immediate left of the level meter.

When you have finished recording, you just tap a red Stop button and you are asked what you want to do with your recording: Start Over, Play, Scrap It, or Save It.

Tapping the Save It option provides you with a screen where you type in a name your recording, add some comments, and assign it to a category. You can even add a photo tag to your recording by tapping the blue image icon at the top-left of the recording info screen!

To access your recordings, you can use the Recordings icon at the bottom of the interface where they are listed by date or by using the Categories button at the bottom of the in. When view recordings, you will see that SpeakEasy marks all recordings as “New” (by placing a blue dot next to them) until you have either listened to them or marked them as played manually.

As you listen to a recording, you can see the information about the file such as its name, category, photo, duration, file size, and any comments you added. Additionally, you can scrub the audio to listen to it anywhere, move it to the Trash, or turn of the external speaker of your device rather than making it play through the headphones.

SpeakEasy also offers a few additional nice options which are found under the iPod touch main “Settings” application. From here, you can specify whether you want SpeakEasy to play output via the iPod touch's speaker or headphone jack, as well as choose from one of five recording quality levels. While the default setting of "Good" works for everyday usage without much background noise, you may find it helpful to adjust the recording quality to a higher setting if you're in a crowded, noisier environment.

To get recording off your iPod touch, you will need to download and install the SpeakEasy Connect application. To use this application, you launch it and then sync your iPod with iTunes. The program then allow you to downloads your recordings from the device and transfers them into a SpeakEasy Recordings playlist folder in iTunes. Under the playlist folder, you will see playlist for each category and the recordings associated with them.

While SpeakEasy Connect remembers your sync history making it easy to decide which recordings you want to transfer and which to skip, the Auto Transfer options makes it easy to send recordings from SpeakEasy on your iPod touch to iTunes with just a simply sync of your iPod touch each time!

With its easy to use interface and solid management features, SpeakEasy will definitely address most of your other voice recording needs you will have on your iPod touch. For a very reasonably-priced investment, you can make voice recording on your iPod touch that much more powerful and useful.