Teaching Podcasting and Vodcasting to Elementary Students!

Greetings,

Hope you had a great weekend. We survived the great snow storm of 2011. Now it is time to get back to work. I am blogging to give you an update on my podcasting and vodcasting class I am teaching at my elementary school. That’s right podcasting and vodcasting with students as early as first grade! This class is going on from 7:30 – 8:00AM Monday thru Friday.

At our school we have enrichment classes where the students who are doing extremely well have the opportunity to take advanced classes. Currently I am working with elementary students who are excited about recording their own voice in the computer and adding background music to create their own podcast. 

For more information on the blog article I published last year on audacity, please click here.  If you look below, here is a sample introduction podcast we created in the class.

Once the students have mastered the basic skills in audacity, I move on to teaching them how to create a vodcast using the new pocket digital flip cameras. (This objective is part of my 4 week course on Digital Video).  To learn how to use this camera you can visit the blog article I published last year: http://mrybarra.blogspot.com/2010/04/flip-digital-video-camera-in-classroom.html  Here are a few technology skills I teach the students:

1. How to hold the camera

2. How to operate the camera

3. How to record other students talking

4. How to position the student in the camera frame.

5. How to edit their video in Windows Live Movie Maker

6. How to add cinematic effects, transisitions, titles and credits

7. How to produce or publish the video using Windows Live Movie Maker

I am finding out that the students really enjoy learning these skills at an early age. The students are fascinated and excited about the class. I recently found out that the program audacity is also being taught at our high school level in the Video Technology class. I am excited for the students and I wish I had a class like this one when I was in elementary school. I will be sharing more details of this class in future blogs. Take care and we will see you next week.

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How to Create a Podcast or Vodcast Part 2 of 3

Hello,
Today I will be covering the following steps:

3. Installing Audio Software to Record Your Podcast
4. Using Audio Software to Record Your Podcast

So, let's get started with installing the audio software.

3. Installing Audio Software to Record Your Podcast: You want to use the best possible free software to edit and prepare your podcast. The one I recommend is Audacity. It's free and a very good sound editor. It can be found by clicking on the picture above. Once you go to the site you want to download Audacity 1.2.6 Once you get to the site you will want to choose Audacity 1.2.6 installer and if the download does not begin, choose the option direct link Save the file to your desktop. When you are using the software in Audacity you will need to convert your sound files to an Mp3 and you will need to download the LAME encoder by going to LAME Mp3 Encoder Once you visit the site, you will need to choose the operating system you are using, then click on the LAME download page Toward the bottom of the page you will see the following picture. Click on the appropriate link on the site, and save it to your desktop. Next, you will go to your desktop and double click on the icon and it will ask you to run it, click run and follow the instructions. You will want to remember where you saved it, usually it will be in your Program files menu. Next, double click on the audacity icon on your desktop and you will see the following:

Open Audacity and click on Edit -> Preferences -> File Formats Now this is what you will see. Click on Find Library and follow the instructions. (Here is where you want to find the LAME Mp3 Encoder file, remember it is under Program Files)

4. Using Audio Software to Record Your Podcast: Once you have your software and the Lame Mp3 encoder is installed you are ready to test your microphone. You can either use a headset with a microphone or you can use a microphone and your computer speakers. Plug in your microphone or headset. The microphone is usually the red jack and the headphones is usually the black jack. Go to Start -> Control Panel and double click on Sounds and Audio Devices. Next, click on the Voice tab and click the Test Hardware button. Follow the instructions to test your microphone. For additional tips on settings to make your recordings great visit the following site Great Tips on Recording When you are in Audacity make sure "Microphone" is selected as the recording source in the drop-down menu on the mixer toolbar.

Go to Edit -> Preferences -> On the Audio I/O tab make sure your sound card is selected as the device for playback and recording. In the Channels drop-down box under Recording, choose 1 (Mono). You can use stereo if you want but it will make your file larger and you want to try and keep it as small as possible. Under the Quality tab make sure you choose 44,100Hz as the Default Sample Rate and 16-bit as the Default Sample Format. Under the File Formats tab make sure you choose WAV (Microsoft 16 bit PCM) as the Uncompressed Export Format.

Now you are ready to record. Check on the microphone Meter toolbar in Audacity and you should see a red level indicator moving when you start recording. You can talk into the microphone and make adjustments to the volume until it looks like the picture below.

Now, your almost ready to record. Down below in the picture you will see the featured buttons to start your recording.



Simply push the Record button and you can start talking. When your done recording press the yellow square button to Stop the recording. If you want to edit your file, where you want to cut out parts of your recording or delete parts. You simply edit out parts by clicking and dragging to highlight the part you want to remove. Select Edit and choose either Cut or Delete. The part you want to edit will turn a grey shaded color. If you want to keep only one section of a recording, highlight that section and select Trim from the Edit menu. Take a look at the picture down below and you will see how to edit your clip.

You can also record many multiple tracks to add to your podcast, which is one of the many features you can't do with movie maker 2.Ok, next week I will be talking abou the final steps in your podcast, step 5. Turning your Podcast into a Vodcast and step 6. Publishing and Promoting. I will also be covering how to add music to your podcast and how to convert your WAV file to an MP3 so you can post online. See you next week.

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