Podcasts on the Go

Engage

The world around you has many connections to what you learn in the classroom. From people you know whose work involves writing, researching and using math skills, to understanding how nature and our physical environment affects you.

Being able to connect those out-of-classroom experiences and connect them with what you do in school has never been easier now that we have cell and smart phones.

But just because you or someone you know has that phone doesn't mean that it can instantly and accurately capture those out-of-classroom experiences or resources to tell others how they connect to your learning. That is the 'secret sauce' you'll need to demonstrate that you can do in this lesson.   

Explore

As a class you've been learning about a specific subject. The most recent unit you've been working on has involved your developing an understanding of that topic by reading, researching and discussing it with your classmates and teacher. Now you're going to be asked to apply that new knowledge into a project that shows you understand the facts by reaching out beyond the resources and approaches you've used in the classroom.

Think about who, where or what outside the classroom are involved in using the information or skills you've learned in your research. Perhaps it's a person who uses these skills in their job. Or maybe you see examples in your surroundings. You need to think about what it is that want to capture so that you can convey it to your classmates and teacher.

Explain

Even if you've never tried recording audio with your cell or smart phone before, don't be concerned, this is easy to do.

Find out how familiar students are with podcasts by asking students what they like to listen to on the radio. Ask if any of them have listened to 'radio' programs on the Internet. Explain that this form of audio programing is often referred to as podcasts and provide examples of programs that are shows shared only through podcasts and not the radio.

Elaborate

Take the techtorial, "What’s a Podcast," at http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/13-basic-podcasting-software.htm.

Find some podcasts to show to students as examples.

Have students spend time practicing with their cell phones to capture (record) audio to be used in the podcast.

Have students send a sample audio recording to their blogger.com account so that they can download it to a computer so that they can practice editing using an audio program such as Audacity. To learn more about audio editing see the LearniT-TeachiT techtorials  http://edu.learnit-teachit.org/technology/Digital_Audio/

Evaluate

Extend

When planning their scripts, students can also record their ideas in concept maps (diagrams that they can use to organize their thoughts).

Use podcasts as an option for final presentations following a science, music, history, or language arts unit. For example, a podcast could be used to share an original play based on an historical event, much like the old radio plays with sound effects, etc.