PODCASTING IN THE CLASSROOM

LANGUAGE ARTS AND PODCASTING

A very natural fit – words and sound! Activates the spoken word Increases the writer’s audience Speakers listen and critique their own

voices Great writing, reading, and oral literacy

opportunities! (Integrated Academics tag cloud)

Activate your course content!

QUICK SURVEY

What is a podcast? Did you ever listen to a podcast? Have you ever recorded your own

voice? Have you used Audacity? Have you created a podcast? Have you used Movie Maker or Photo

Story?

EQUIPMENT NEEDED

Basic equipment – computer with headset/microphone

Next step – Portable mp3 recorder

EQUIPMENT NEEDED

Slightly more advanced studio equipment:

Podcast porta-cart!

A PODCAST… HMMMM?

A podcast is an audio recording Length from 30 second clips to a full

30-minute broadcast Saved as an .mp3 or .wav file Listeners hear a short amateur radio

show Available to a wide audience of listeners Here’s a sample!

PODCASTING HISTORY

Podcasting is a relatively new medium In 2004: A Google search for ‘podcasts’

gave us only 22 results Tuesday evening’s Google search for

‘podcasting’ - over 17,100,000 hits Over 100,000 shows listed in iTunes

directory

PODCAST = IPOD?

An iPod is not needed to hear or create a podcast

Anyone with a computer can hear and download podcasts

If you don’t have iTunes or a Mac, what will you do?

DOES PODCAST = IPOD?

MAKING YOUR OWN PODCAST

PODCASTS IN THE CLASSROOM

IDEAS FOR YOUR CLASSROOM

Field trip reports Digital storytelling Documenting

progress Class lectures Interviews In conjunction with

Moviemaker or Photo Story

Remote Lectures

Foreign languages Parent

communication Professional

Development Oral reports Class or School wide

Newcast Audio Quizzes

CYCLE OF PODCASTING DEVELOPMENT

Gathering Planning

Student “On Task” Time

Practice Recording and Editing

Publishing

RESEARCH AND SYNTHESIS

As with any project, this is MOST important! Storage - Where will the students’ projects

be kept? Computer Hard Drive Memory Stick CDRW Network Drive NEVER on Floppy Disk (If they still exist!)

Models – Locate and play exemplary podcasts as models for students

GATHERING OF RESOURCES

Hardware/Software Gathering - Prepare for your students to succeed!

Download music tracks for background or bumper music for the students’ podcasts prior to beginning the project

Create “templates” in Audacity

RECORDING THE PODCAST

Prepare to model proper use of software to your students.

Free audio editor Audacity Commercial products could give better

results, but they present significant learning challenges!

AUDACITY

Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds.

It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.

Simple graphical user interface (GUI) allows for easy to use by students and adults alike.

Let’s open Audacity!

Click the button with the small red circle when

you are ready to record audio

Click the button with the two blue vertical lines to pause during recording. To begin recording again

press pause a second time.

Click the button with the green triangle to listen

to a playback of the recording

Use the Selection Tool

button to delete portions the

audio

Highlight the area to delete. Use backspace

or delete button to remove.

READING THE SCRIPT – TIPS FOR THE KIDS!

Practice, practice! Never ad lib! 3 or 4 fingers from the

microphone Support your voice – breathe!

READING THE SCRIPT – TIPS FOR THE KIDS!

Leave space between phrases for editing

Use the pause feature Repeat error laden sentences in real

time and edit later

AUDACITY – BACKGROUND MUSIC Drag and Drop clips into Audacity Creates background music to enhance the

podcast Where can I find music?

Garageband.com Freeplaymusic.com

Don’t forget about COPYRIGHT LAWS and FAIR USE!

Edit amplitude (volume) Make sure the voice on the recording can be

heard

Use the Envelope Tool to

edit the amplitude or volume of the

recording

Set points in the track. All

volume between those points will

be changed

NOW WE WILL EXPORT OURRECORDING AS AN MP3 FILE

Export the recording as an mp3 file

Save files on flash drive, network

drive, cd rw, or hard drive

The LAME Encoder is needed to export as an

mp3. Locate where the lame3.dll is located.

INTERNET PUBLISHING OF PODCASTS

PUBLISH PODCASTS

Is the podcast just for classroom use? If not, where will the audio file “live”? You need space on a web server

Your own Your school’s

A few places to publish podcasts Ourmedia.org http://www.podbean.com/

PODCASTING RESOURCES

Audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ LAME Encoder - http://lame.sourceforge.net/ iTunes –

http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/podcasts.html

Garageband – http://www.garageband.com Podcasting Tools -

http://www.podcasting-tools.com/ http://www.a1freesoundeffects.com/ dmoz Open Directory - Free sound links!

…AND MORE RESOURCES TO HELP

NPR Podcast Directory - http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php

Free Play Music – http://www.freeplaymusic.com Free Audio Clips – http://www.freeaudioclips.com Yahoo Podcasts - http://podcasts.yahoo.com/ Podcastalley -

http://www.podcastalley.com/index.php

CONTACT INFORMATION

rauvil@unitedsd.net livua@hotmail.com RAuvil – “delicious” social bookmarking Integrated Academics Wiki Or just yell really loud!