Podcast Practice
Into the computer lab today and onto Audacity with an introductory assignment with the kids in my class. In 70 minutes, produce a 2 - 3 minute podcast on something you are interested in (we talked about possible topics: movies, sports, entertainment, events at school, etc., etc.). Have opening and closing music, transition between topics and have transition music or sounds. At the end, it also needed to be converted to an MP3 file.
It was a very busy class.
The content was not the issue. Although the kids did spend a fair amount of time laughing at themselves and their voices ("I don't sound like that!"), content was not a problem. Even to say they were unprepared, many of the kids did very well because they chose things they were interested in and they had some knowledge about. These are junior high kids, they have plenty to say.
The concern is going to be with production. Small, cheap microphones of course give small, cheap sound quality. Music that is open source or licensed under Creative Commons is going to take time to find. There is plenty of it out there, but the kids will need to listen to massive amounts of it to find something they are satisfied with because they don't know any of it. Tis comes back to the issues of grazing and thinking that I wrote about the other day. While I want kids to take their time and complete something that is good quality, I also know that they can get caught up in details and can play forever. It is like working on Word documents with younger kids, they will take seemingly forever to find a font, colour, and size they are happy with.
They need to listen to high quality samples. I'm considering burning CDs for kids to take home and listen to of high quality podcasts that make good use of sound and which are technically interesting. Teaching kids a new form of representation takes time and examples. Similar to writing poetry, kids often don't know what they can do because they have not seen enough different samples and examples.
The kids have organized themselves into small groups (school, technology, entertainment, music, movies, exercise, etc.) and will next week begin on this project. They will be required to complete 10 -12 episodes (either podcasts, vlogs, or a combination of the two) on their chosen topics. I still need to find space to upload our work, figure out how to write the code for an RSS feed and find out Canadian copyright law on sampling music and video to be placed in podcasts, vlogs.
Interestingly, these last few days have turned us towards major discussions on copyright law, what it is, and why there is a need for it. Most of the kids in my class download music freely and don't really understand how they are doing something illegal. Their view of the music business is that artists should make money from concerts, retailing merchandise, appearing on TV, the radio, in magazines, etc., but that the music needs to be free or very low cost. They have been downloading music for free since they were able, and they will not even tolerate the $1 / track that iTunes charges.
The journey continues....
70 minutes...that's a good start for a first podcasting session. I always find it interesting the in depth conversations that come about when you start empowering kids. Like their take on the music industry. I wonder if anyone has ever bothered to ask them how they view music and where artist should make their money. I'm not saying I agree, but maybe they’re on to something. I remember last year when I was talking about copyright laws with 9th graders in Saudi Arabia. There is no such thing is copyright in Saudi and most of the students had never heard the term. It was a two week discussion, and still one I remember.
Once you get students hooked with something like this they take off and run with it. I wonder how many of the students spent time this past weekend looking for Open Source and Creative Commons music on the Internet for their podcast? Recent studies show that students, on average, spend about 1 hour a day on the computer. What if 30 minutes of that time this weekend was looking for music for class? Could you say that you have taken the time students are already spending on the computer and turning it into productive educational time? That's what I think this is all about. Taking the time that students already spend on the computer and making it meaningful. Not just browsing myspace.com or playing a game because they’re bored. Now they have something to do, something to engage them while online. Thanks for the update...I'm following this one closely. ;)
Posted by:Jeff Utecht | Sunday, February 26, 2006 at 03:49 PM
Have you tried recording with digital audio recorders?
Posted by:eddie | Sunday, February 26, 2006 at 09:12 PM