Our 11th grade English Course students at Kawagoe High School have been corresponding since April 1998 with those in Adams High School, Rochester Hills, Michigan by e-mail. Towards the end of November, 1998, we began to use the mail software called "With Voice Multi." This enables us to send pictures and voice together just like when you do a presentation with Microsoft Powerpoint. You line up some pictures, then record your voice, and if you change the picture at a certain moment, the timing of the change of pictures is also recorded. Furthermore, one can also record the movement of pointers or other visual objects like colorful lines or shapes. The completed presentation-like letter is compressed into a very small file and can be sent attached to a usual mail. "With Voice Multi" was made for the presentation for new products but has great potentiality for education, especially in global projects like ours.

Mr. Makoto Kageto, who teaches commerce at Nagoya City Seiryo Commercial High, found "With Voice Multi" when he was searching for a handy software which can send multi-media information. He has been doing many wonderful projects with his students through real time communication with CUseeme software. He however feels that real time communication is so difficult that multi-media communication through internet cannot be popular in education. Mr. Kageto, thus wondering, found "With Voice Multi," and fell in love with it at first sight.

Mr. Kageto introduced me to this software, and it was an amazing shock to me as an English teacher who wanted to get a good tool to enhance listening and speaking activities through the e-mail project. "With Voice Multi" is so easy to use and effective. My students were able to use it on the day it was introduced to the class. Adams High students sent very nice feedbacks to our "With Voice Multi" mails.

The following is by Dean Korachis.

"The audio mail you sent us was very interesting. I didn't know that all the kids ride their bicycles to school. To answer the students question on the chalkboards, yes, we do have the same kind in the United States. I am amazed how the children speak English so well. I noticed in some of the pictures was an American-looking child. Do you have any exchange students in the school? It was very interesting to hear your own voice from 5000+ miles away. "

The teacher at Adams High, Mrs. Ceil Jensen wrote:

"These are just FABULOUS! You are ahead of us."

Ceil wanted to get the same software, and I asked MediaKite, the distributing company of "With Voice Multi" in Japan, and found out that "Powerlink" by Softlink co. in the US was just the same. I informed her about that and she got one. Before long we got a Christmas multi-media message from Adams High.