We recently worked with a partner to create a podcast. Our authentic problem was that we were making a travel blog about a monument or memorial in Washington. The steps were clear: research, figure out the angle to take, write a script, record, and edit. I'd worked with sound-editing software two years ago when I made a sound slides presentation as part of a journalism-advisor fellowship. I used Audacity and found it very difficult to work with, so I wasn't anxious about trying it again. But my Mac has Garage Band and, maybe because of my experience with Audacity, I found it to be user-friendly and rather simple to create the podcast.
So the obvious question was, how could I use it in my classroom? I was talking with a colleague who recently got a Mac for use in his classroom with gifted students. A few years ago, when his son was a fifth-grader, the class went on a field trip to Washington. Each student had been assigned a memorial, and wrote a little talk to give, including history of the memorial and something the student would change about it if he/she could. We wondered if we could do something podcast-related with that, but we both agreed that the public-speaking component of his son's assignment was important.
I thought about lessons I already have that might be able to be modified to incorporate a podcast. And I came up with this. Last semester, I had students prepare a short "last lecture" speech to go along with the book "The Last Lecture." There's no reason their speeches couldn't be turned into podcasts. (There are lots of other opportunities for oral presentations in my class.)
I would need to spend a lot more time working with Audacity to see if I can learn it well enough to teach it, and I would run into the always-problematic scheduling computer lab time. And then there's the issue of a quiet place for students to record audio. Lots to think about, but I like the technology.
3 comments:
It's true, Laura--incorporating technology requires a lot of moving parts to align. Throw in the fact that you need silence to effectively record audio, and it can be difficult to implement such a lesson. I don't know what your student population is like, but it might be worth thinking about encouraging students to bring their own devices in. Since newer smartphones often come with headphone/mic combos, you might be able to use these tools to your advantage with an app the students can put on their phones. Something like Voice Recorder or other app may limit the potential for students to be creative, but it would allow you to avoid some of the other hoops you would otherwise have to jump through.
I think you'd be surprised, also, about how much students already know about Audacity. I know that our Foreign Language department uses it often. I see them in the computer lab and students are very respectful of each other as they work on the speaking components of the lesson. I know how hard it is to reserve space in the labs, but you may be able to have them work on it independently as Sam mentions. It may be neat if you even set up a "radio booth"' that demanded a quiet space.
I love that you're thinking about using podcast in place of oral presentations. It provides students new and creative ways to share what they learned, and can serve as an exit strategy if you publish them to the web. I think that Sam is right, they could really use any device that allows for voice recordings. Many headsets with mics are noise cancelling or provide the same effect. So you might be able to get away with having several groups work within the same space as they are recording. The Arlington Career Center even has a Sound-Proof booth for such things. If you've got an industrious parent, you might be able to get one built fairly easily.
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