Let's Make a Podcast! Reflection on the Process
I experienced a few challenges making my first podcast this week, but I must admit, although the project was as complex as my Digital Storytelling work, I feel like I hit less bumps in the road this time around.
I got my idea to work with poetry performance pretty quickly and I made a sample poetry reading using the same techniques from my Digital Storytelling Youtube video. This time around, however, I used a Quicktime video as my audio source so I could avoid iMovie to put the sound and picture together. Yay! Loading the audio track to Youtube, adding a few pics with transitions and adjusting the timing only took about half an hour! I would assign this kind of project to my students in a heartbeat!
But this poem video was just the topic of my podcast. I needed now to record a discussion/lecture about the poem itself. I considered using Quicktime again but discarded this idea almost immediately. It's a very blunt tool and there are no editing capabilities. Much of the material in our resources recommends Audacity, but when I tried to download it, I hit some wrong buttons and got frustrated.
I really want to work with the tools I have already instead of downloading new software! I remembered that one of the articles I had read mentioned GarageBand as another recording and editing program so I threw away the Audacity loader and opened up GarageBand that was already loaded on my Mac!
I found this Youtube video "GarageBand Tutorial 2015: How to Record a Podcast with GarageBand" was very helpful.
GarageBand is AWESOME! Recording was a breeze (using the nifty mic provided by the class) and when I was done with the first eight minutes, I listened back to what I had said.
Ug! My first few minutes were full of "Uh" and "Um" and this weird "Tsk" sound I make with my mouth before most sentences. Unbearable to listen to SO I took advantage of the EDITING capabilities of GarageBand and spent most of a day cutting up and cutting out the tiny annoying extra sounds I had made. Well worth the time and the education I got from it, but it really felt like a day weeding the garden.
I realized that I had been trying to improvise too many lines on the fly. When I have a complete script in front of me, I can speak much more fluently and smoothly than when I just have jotted notes. SO I wrote out a complete, word-for-word script for the second half of the podcast and the recording was much better.
The video I linked to above taught me how to add some music at the beginning and the end of my podcast and how to fade it in and out, lovely. The file saved on my desktop as an .mp3 file.
I did get stuck after I loaded the podcast to iTunes. From there, I couldn't figure out how to find the code to add the code to play it from my blog. But one phone call to Cindy at the Professional Development Center at Niles North solved my problem. She said just load the .mp3 into my Google Drive, save it for Public consumption and get a shareable link. All that took moments and my podcast was done, yay!
One thing I love about podcasts (and I think many students will find helpful) is that you can (sometimes) play them in the background while doing work on the computer. I could be searching for the terms that are unfamiliar in a podcast lecture or making my own notes to remember when I had heard.
I'm sure students would have fun working with audio editing software -- music is such a vital part of adolescents' lives that they could really enjoy making sound montages that express the mood or atmosphere of a piece of lit OR making mixes that express the relationship between characters in a work of lie we study in class.
Preparing for my podcast required a lot a background research on Emily Dickinson. I learned as much as I taught, I'm sure. Just as teachers can use Writing to Learn strategies to help students teach themselves and to facilitate informal communication in the class community, podcasts can be a version of Speaking to Learn, providing quick oral "check-ups" on progress over time. A typical assignment for this would be for each student to record a summary of what they learned in class that day, load it into Google Drive and share it with the teacher for homework. The assignments can be down and dirty with an emphasis on content over pretty form OR they can be polished and professional, taking place as formative or summative assessments of the coursework.
I got my idea to work with poetry performance pretty quickly and I made a sample poetry reading using the same techniques from my Digital Storytelling Youtube video. This time around, however, I used a Quicktime video as my audio source so I could avoid iMovie to put the sound and picture together. Yay! Loading the audio track to Youtube, adding a few pics with transitions and adjusting the timing only took about half an hour! I would assign this kind of project to my students in a heartbeat!
But this poem video was just the topic of my podcast. I needed now to record a discussion/lecture about the poem itself. I considered using Quicktime again but discarded this idea almost immediately. It's a very blunt tool and there are no editing capabilities. Much of the material in our resources recommends Audacity, but when I tried to download it, I hit some wrong buttons and got frustrated.
I really want to work with the tools I have already instead of downloading new software! I remembered that one of the articles I had read mentioned GarageBand as another recording and editing program so I threw away the Audacity loader and opened up GarageBand that was already loaded on my Mac!
I found this Youtube video "GarageBand Tutorial 2015: How to Record a Podcast with GarageBand" was very helpful.
GarageBand is AWESOME! Recording was a breeze (using the nifty mic provided by the class) and when I was done with the first eight minutes, I listened back to what I had said.
Ug! My first few minutes were full of "Uh" and "Um" and this weird "Tsk" sound I make with my mouth before most sentences. Unbearable to listen to SO I took advantage of the EDITING capabilities of GarageBand and spent most of a day cutting up and cutting out the tiny annoying extra sounds I had made. Well worth the time and the education I got from it, but it really felt like a day weeding the garden.
I realized that I had been trying to improvise too many lines on the fly. When I have a complete script in front of me, I can speak much more fluently and smoothly than when I just have jotted notes. SO I wrote out a complete, word-for-word script for the second half of the podcast and the recording was much better.
The video I linked to above taught me how to add some music at the beginning and the end of my podcast and how to fade it in and out, lovely. The file saved on my desktop as an .mp3 file.
I did get stuck after I loaded the podcast to iTunes. From there, I couldn't figure out how to find the code to add the code to play it from my blog. But one phone call to Cindy at the Professional Development Center at Niles North solved my problem. She said just load the .mp3 into my Google Drive, save it for Public consumption and get a shareable link. All that took moments and my podcast was done, yay!
One thing I love about podcasts (and I think many students will find helpful) is that you can (sometimes) play them in the background while doing work on the computer. I could be searching for the terms that are unfamiliar in a podcast lecture or making my own notes to remember when I had heard.
I'm sure students would have fun working with audio editing software -- music is such a vital part of adolescents' lives that they could really enjoy making sound montages that express the mood or atmosphere of a piece of lit OR making mixes that express the relationship between characters in a work of lie we study in class.
Preparing for my podcast required a lot a background research on Emily Dickinson. I learned as much as I taught, I'm sure. Just as teachers can use Writing to Learn strategies to help students teach themselves and to facilitate informal communication in the class community, podcasts can be a version of Speaking to Learn, providing quick oral "check-ups" on progress over time. A typical assignment for this would be for each student to record a summary of what they learned in class that day, load it into Google Drive and share it with the teacher for homework. The assignments can be down and dirty with an emphasis on content over pretty form OR they can be polished and professional, taking place as formative or summative assessments of the coursework.
Great point about being able to look up terms while listening to a podcast.
ReplyDeleteThanks for giving us a detailed description of what did and didn't work. Again, you have saved us loads of time. Thanks!
I hadn't thought of using music in my podcast. What a neat idea. I'm sure students will be all over that!
Again, Cindy, you have gone the extra mile(s) in this project. You will be well-equipped for using these tools in your classroom after all the work you have invested this summer. Kudos!
ReplyDeleteThe danger of a podcast is that a student may think he can multi-task while listening to it. I have tried this and I have found that I don't listen all that well. If we use podcasting for instruction, we would probably have to train our students in its use. I suppose this is the risk with alork,l video or audio assignments we give students. They still have to use the media responsibly.
Thanks again, for your great work, Cindy.
I just re-read your post and found another point that struck me. You mentioned having students make an audio montage representing the mood of a lit piece. That's a great idea! They could use classical music (doing so helps to avoid inappropriate language) and thus gain insight into that genre as well.
ReplyDelete