Audacity is a free and open-source digital audio editor and recording application. This means that not only can you use it on your Mac at school, but you can download it onto any other computer that you use at home. It's very easy to record and edit audio with this program. If you have a school project that requires you to record your voice, this program will work well.
To download Audacity onto your school computer
Open Self Service
The icon will look like one of these:
Click on the "Requested Apps" section on the left column
Click "Install" under Audacity
The install should only take about 1-2 minutes total
Now you can open Audacity
Notice when you first log in, it links to their help documents. You can get back to these later from the help menu.
Click OK to close that window
To start recording, just press the record button (red circle)
As you record, you'll see the waveform that represents your audio in the main window.
To stop recording
Click the stop (square) or the pause (2 lines) button at the top.
To play back your recording
Use the rewind (line triangle) and play (triangle) buttons
*If your computer is not picking up any sound, open your system preferences, go to "audio," and make sure that the correct microphone is selected under the "input" tab. You can use the microphone on your computer to record or you can plug in a mic.
Now would be a good time to save your project.
Go to File - Save Project
*This just saves your work as you go. This isn't the file you'll turn in to your teacher. Also, notice the shortcut for it (command-S). Every time you do something new that you don't want to redo, press command-s to save your progress.
Did you record something that you want to delete?
Just highlight the bad part and click your delete key, similar to how you'd highlight and delete a line of text in Word.
Keep working on your recording until you are happy with it.
Save as a sound file
When you are ready to turn in your recording or use it in another program, you'll need to save it as a sound file. For most purposes, an MP3 will work best.
Click on the file menu and click on "Export," then "Export as MP3"
Choose where you'd like to save it and name it appropriately.
Learn more
If you'd like to learn how to edit your sound files further, check out their online manual:
https://manual.audacityteam.org/quick_help.html