Student Podcast Projects

Alan Bessette

bessette@poole.ac.jp

Poole Gakuin University

GloCALL - 2007

Goal of presentation

Outline what I did to guide students in producing their own podcasts

Provide resources so that you can create podcasts with your own students

Podcast projects

http://www.poole-englishweb.com/pooleblog/

Interview

Radio podcast

Goals

Motivate students Providing a real audience Encouraging student to be more careful when

producing language Challenging students

Provide authentic opportunities to use English

Continuity with course goals

Background

Number of students: 9 Level: high intermediate to advanced Length: one semester (about 14 weeks)

Podcasts were one in a series of projects

School newspaper Video projects

Cooking show Introducing Osaka Castle

Goal: Graduation project Video introduction of three world heritage

sites in the Osaka area

Tools for project

Wordpress blog (http://wordpress.org/) Place to upload podcasts Open source blog platform

Podpress (http://www.mightyseek.com/podpress/) Podcast plugin for Wordpress Automatically creates feeds (RSS2, iTunes and

ATOM and BitTorrent RSS) Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/)

Open source editing software Recording studio

Alternative tools

Hosting alternatives Blogger (https://www.blogger.com) and

Edublogs (http://www.edublogs.org) Both have plugins similar to podpress

Odeo (http://www.odeo.com) and Podomatic (http://www.podomatic.com) Not as flexible, but make uploading a podcast easy Only for podcasts

Alternative tools

Sound editing Garage Band for Macs Quicktime Pro

Quiet room with computer and mike or digital recorder

Podcast projects

Student interviews: Students interviewing each other About summer vacation About music

Student radio podcasts: Students creating and producing a radio podcast Interviews and music

Organization

Students divided into groups of 3 Two performers One sound engineer and editor

Responsible for cueing performers and editing the final podcast

All share in deciding content of podcast

First step - Planning

Most important Decide

Roles Contents of podcast

Plan the language that is needed Use dictionaries Use teacher as resource

Planning: Interview

Deciding interview topic How to introduce topic and interviewee Decide on questions to be asked Outline answers to questions How to conclude interview Decide on blog layout for podcast

Title Explanation Pictures

Planning: Radio Podcast

Choose songs Outline topics to be talked about

Upcoming events Movies News

Decide on blog layout for podcast Title Song list Pictures

Music resources for radio podcasts

Podsafe Audio: http://www.podsafeaudio.com/ 24 genres and 1,000 + artists

Podsafe Music Network: http://music.podshow.com/ 2,834 pages of songs Must register A few songs cost money to download

Copyright issues

Songs are under Creative Commons license Cannot use songs for commercial purposes Must attribute songs to the artist

Podcasting Legal Guide http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Podcasting_Legal_Guide

Producing the podcast

Practice before recording Record in Audacity and save recordings

as mp3 files Record the radio podcast in small sections

Intro, talk between songs, and conclusion

Editing - Interviews

Interviews were single small files 5 – 8 MB / less than 10 minutes

Editing done with Audacity Cleaning up the recording Eliminating long silences, retakes

Editing – Radio podcasts

Recorded in sections so there were 8 to 12 small files that needed to be spliced together 20 to 30 MB / 20 to 30 minutes

Editing done with Audacity Cleaning up student recordings Splicing files together

Resources for using Audacity

Recording Audio http://www.public.iastate.edu/~volkerh/projects/podca

sting/tutorials/recording_audacity/recording_audacity.html

Importing and Editing http://www.public.iastate.edu/~volkerh/projects/podca

sting/tutorials/import_audacity/import_audacity.html Adding music tracks

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~volkerh/projects/podcasting/tutorials/music_tutorial/music_tutorial.html

Uploading to blog or website

Uploading to blog or website

Assessment

Teamwork How well did the team members work

together? How well did the team members share the

work? Planning & Practice

Completion of podcast planning worksheets Final product should reflect amount of

practice

Assessment

Presentation Presence of required components

Creativity How interesting Number of comments

Language skills Self-evaluation by students

Student feedback (Radio Podcasts)

Overall Interesting & good experience Being a DJ was fun Enjoyed choosing songs New experience

Student feedback (Radio Podcasts)

Benefits Having to talk for a long time provided

speaking practice Learned new vocabulary

Student feedback (Radio Podcasts)

Student suggestions Engineer role not needed All group members should speak More practice time

Reflections

Spend more time with editing skills Have all students speaking Other types of podcasts

Ideas for podcasts

Dramatic readings Radio play, e.g., Orson Wells’ War of the

Worlds Roundtable discussion of literature or

current issue / problem Presentation of research CMC