"Creating podcasts is a great way for students to preserve oral histories or to hear themselves practicing a foreign language. Open source program Audacity and Apple's Garage Band are excellent platforms for recording podcasts. You can also record podcasts without installing software by using Aviary's Myna service or Google Voice. If you need a free place to host podcasts check out PodBean or Blubrry."
- FreeTech4Teachers.com from the article: 77 Web Resources for Teachers to Explore This Summer
Podcasting is a great way to have your students see the real life purpose to the writing task you give them and it gives students a real audience so they are more likely to put greater effort into the work they are producing. Podcasts can be about anything - that's the beauty of them! Podcasts involve writing, speaking, listening, cooperative working, and more. Podcasting helps students build their oral speaking skills and gives them a chance to practice 'public' speaking which as well all know, most of the students dislike. Since speaking in front of people is a very common skill in the workforce, it is important we expose students to as many different ways to help them work on their comfort level in this area as we can, thus the infusion of Podcasting and other audio projects!
Audacity is on the Horizon School Division computers and it is a simple interface that is user-friendly for students and teachers. You can record, edit the clip and save it as different file types. It is my go-to program for anything audio in my school. If your school has MAC computers instead of PC's then your go-to program will be GarageBand. GarageBand is really simple to use and does have more options when it comes to adding in background music and instruments. Each program is good for regular usage and you may want to look at other options if you want or need more effects.
A Few Ideas to Try:
Radio Dramas - Reading from a play out loud as a class, with students being the characters - record it and post it online, stream it as a podcast for other classrooms to hear and save a copy of it for another year as a neat example or post it on a website as a series!
Readers Theatre - Students act/speak (out) a selection of literature in their own version or way - a spin on the old version of Readers Theatre but with a technology spin - just record it and post it to a website for parents to hear! Kids are more inclined to put more effort into their work when they know other people, including their parents, have access and will be hearing or seeing it!
Photo Story Reading - An audio and multimedia project involving students reading from a short story or book, recording the audio with Audacity and recording their screen with a screen-caster program. My students used Dr. Seuss books and pictures in a CPT class but this can be expanded for any short story. We used screentoaster.com but I kinda like screencast-o-matic.com better. There are many choices out there for this type of project
Podcasting- Students discuss an issue that is related to a theme in a novel and discuss how it relates to today's society. Here is an example from Lianne's students:
Dramatic Readings- Select a section of a story, poem or play and have students try to create a dramatic reading. This can be done individually or in partners - I did this with Romeo and Juliet but you could do it with practically any piece of literature. Poetry may be a good idea because you could create a collection of dramatic readings to play in your classroom that are done by the students for the students.
Here is a student example of a reading from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
Listening Activities- I use the funny Canadian Stuart McLean and his Vinyl Cafe stories in my classroom for listening activities. Instead of spending a bunch of money on a cd, you can listen to podcasts of the show or download specific episodes from iTunes! The two episodes I use most often are Wally and Dave Buys a Coffin. They are each about 20-25 minutes in length. Here are my listening activities if you would like to use them:
Podcasting and Other Audio Projects
"Creating podcasts is a great way for students to preserve oral histories or to hear themselves practicing a foreign language. Open source program Audacity and Apple's Garage Band are excellent platforms for recording podcasts. You can also record podcasts without installing software by using Aviary's Myna service or Google Voice. If you need a free place to host podcasts check out PodBean or Blubrry."
- FreeTech4Teachers.com from the article: 77 Web Resources for Teachers to Explore This Summer
Podcasting is a great way to have your students see the real life purpose to the writing task you give them and it gives students a real audience so they are more likely to put greater effort into the work they are producing. Podcasts can be about anything - that's the beauty of them! Podcasts involve writing, speaking, listening, cooperative working, and more. Podcasting helps students build their oral speaking skills and gives them a chance to practice 'public' speaking which as well all know, most of the students dislike. Since speaking in front of people is a very common skill in the workforce, it is important we expose students to as many different ways to help them work on their comfort level in this area as we can, thus the infusion of Podcasting and other audio projects!
Image courtesy of: http://aquaculturepda.wikispaces.com/podcast
Audacity, GarageBand, and many more
Audacity is on the Horizon School Division computers and it is a simple interface that is user-friendly for students and teachers. You can record, edit the clip and save it as different file types. It is my go-to program for anything audio in my school. If your school has MAC computers instead of PC's then your go-to program will be GarageBand. GarageBand is really simple to use and does have more options when it comes to adding in background music and instruments. Each program is good for regular usage and you may want to look at other options if you want or need more effects.
A Few Ideas to Try: