Podcasting – Year in Review Project One annual project that has become very dear to me is the Year in Review Podcasting project. This project began based on an idea generated at our high school to create a review podcast to help students prepare for their global studies regents exam. In an effort to simulate that activity and to provide the students with a review experience, we conceived of a podcast project that would summarize one unit of study (from Social Studies) that we had covered throughout the year. The objective was to create a product that could be used to present to the students next year that would summarize and provide highlights to an upcoming unit. This project is a multi-step project culminating in a sharing activity where finalized student podcasts are shared with the rest of class—what a TERRIFIC way to end the year. Here, step by step, is how we did it.
What is a Podcast?
(iPOD broadCAST) An audio broadcast that has been converted to an MP3 file or other audio file format for playback in a digital music player or computer. The "pod" in podcast was taken from "iPod," a portable, digital music player, and although podcasts are mostly verbal, they may contain music, dialogue and even pictures.
The Process
Step #1:
-Choose a topic that you wish to Podcast about and brainstorm suitable vocabulary.
Step #2: Obtain lyrics. Begin to write out your narrative, Music, lyrics, Poem or Dialogue. Some good lyric websites include: www.lyrics.com, www.azlyrics.com -I provided students with the following list of songs and lyrics to chose from to streamline the process a bit.
Step #3: Plan slides/images that match your narrative (be sure to record your sources in Noodlebib!)
Step #4: Get your music!! I like to use http://www.freemidi.org to download and save midi files of my choice, then I use http://www.Media-Convert.com to change the.midi file format to an .mp3 format. The files I used are here: http://www.k12.ginet.org/webpages/mhoward/podcast.cfm
Step #5: Open Audacity and open your new .mp3 file. You can play this music or click on the red dot to record with your music. YOU WILL NEED A MICROPHONE! Use this link to download YOUR OWN version of the free Audacity software: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ also obtain lameencoder file at http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Lame_Installation
How to Use Audacity:
Step #6: Export your finalized Audacity file as an .mp3 file.
Step #7: Select/Upload images and Audio (.mp3) file into Moviemaker.
Step #8: Modify the timing of the images to match the timing in the sound file.
Step #9: Finish your movie by saving onto your computer as a .wmv file. Use this link to convert your file to a .MOV or .MP4 for use on an i-pod or apple computer: http://www.Media-Convert.com
