Vlogging and Podcasting - Day One

 Excited.

Many of the kids were excited this morning when I began to talk to them about blogging, vlogging, and podcasting.

I started off talking with them about mp3 players and iPods. More then 1/2 of my kids have mp3 players of some kind and all of them have Internet connected computers at home so I was on safe ground talking with them about what kinds of files they have on their machines and what kinds of files they keep on their players. We went through music, data, games, movies, animations and eventually got to podcasting and blogs. Very, very few of the kids had heard of either before but I wasn't surprised because I had heard very few of them talking in the past about this.

So touring we went.

I had downloaded a few podcasts that were short that I thought the kids might be interested in. We listened to the latest sports news from the Olympics, a creepy piece from the American Microbiology Association, and a comedy piece. I was an advertisement for iTunes and its built-in podcast support and organization.

Then we headed for vlogs. I showed them a few snowboarding, skateboarding, and surfing episodes that I had downloaded previously. As well, I showed them a few parts of a few episodes from Rocketboom that I thought they would enjoy.

They got it. They also, used to working on blogs and other projects that have a public audience, saw the potential of posting their stuff online. I was also pleasantly surprised when we came to the discussion about vlogging vs. podcasting and about them being filmed to appear online. At least 6 - 7 kids said that they would be interested in doing a vlog entry. This was pleasantly surprising and pleasing as well that the kids were that confident in themselves.

We played with Audacity as well, creating a sample podcast in about 10 minutes, inserting some audio we made, inserting an mp3 file from my laptop, edited a bit to adjust the volume, showed them some fading effects and created an mp3 in no time flat. They were amazed, impressed, and most importantly, interested. They were amazed that audio files are that easy to edit. Any experiences they have had were long, drawn - out, and complex. Tools have changed and are getting easier to use all the time.

Next is getting into production groups. I've told them that I want to work on a minimum of 10 - 12 episodes and they need to organize themselves around a topic. A few of the boys immediately thought of making vlogs of snowmobiling and dirt - biking when the snow goes. Others were talking about sports, music, and school events. It will be an interesting mix of topics.

Next comes play time. Time to learn to use Audacity. 

technorati tags: vlog, podcast, classroom

Comments

[Will Richardson]

Hey..any chance you'd be willing to post the links to the samples you showed them? Sounds like you're off on another excellent adventure...