Hi, Han, thanks for your report!  I stopped by at Shoesmith last week but saw only Mr. Willis, so I appreciate hearing about all the other aspects going on there.

They used to be very big on AR but as you observe have let it go downhill :( . But before you invest much work in updating the enrollments and so on, please check that they are in fact interested in resuming an active program with AR.  Also see if there is a teacher or admin ready to be the key contact for AR, for both you and the classroom teachers.  If it isn't the A.P. Ms Gates, you could ask Ms Washington about this if you know her.  (Ms Washington was the point person for AR in a previous year.)

For sound recording and editing we've had a lot of interest in Audacity.  (It needs a plugin called "LAME" to produce mp3's.)  For embedding a player in Wordpress blogs, there is Podpress.

  ==mitch