'All About E-Books' Reflection: Parts One and Two
This podcast is a reflection on my first podcast ‘All About E-books.’ Since the reflection got a tad lengthy, I decided to make a two part podcast: The first deals with the actual writing experience, while the second deals with learning about the podcast technology. This is the first part: A Podcast Writing Experience:
I absolutely think podcasting is the way to go for teachers to promote reading, writing, and speaking improvement. Why do I think this? Because ‘I’ myself experienced all of these things when I created my own podcast! After all, it’s only fair that teachers participate and create projects that they assign their students, so now I know what kind of assistance to give, the questions to ask, and what to expect.
I chose this particular technology simply because it interested me. I’ve listened to several podcasts on iTunes, and I thought they might have a real place in a classroom. Of course, theory and reality are two different things. I knew the only way to find this out was to go through the whole process myself.
First, I had to decide what I wanted to podcast ‘about’. My TE project topic – print literacy – is very big and broad. There is a lot of information on it, and I came to the conclusion that a podcast wouldn’t adequately - or effectively - go over the print literacy topic. Instead, I narrowed my choices down and decided to do a bit of research on a new type of print literacy: e-books. This topic is something that is interesting to me – a new e-book reader – but it also is relevant for the general population - especially teachers!
And so my research began: I used the computer, worked with search engines, checked websites that I myself use when I download e-books, and fact-checked information with reputable sources. Then, armed with all of my information, I outlined my podcast, and then wrote out my script.
Now, you’re probably asking yourself: Okay, how is this any different from the traditional writing process? That’s the beauty of it: It’s not! I incorporated all of the strategies I had learned in writing classes in the past, but it took on a completely different layer of importance and meaning: Not only was the topic something I was interested in, but I also knew that my work could potentially reach a much larger audience than just my professor! With that thought in mind, I was careful to check my facts, as well as revise my writing. I think that if students know their work could also potentially reach a larger audience (like classmates, friends, and relatives) they too will have that motivation to create quality work.
The next step in the podcast process involved rereading and revising. The really awesome thing about podcasts is that they ‘force’ you to go back and reread your writing from start to finish. This is because you know you’re eventually going to have to read your script aloud. This step was crucial because as I went and reread my script, I found that I had essentially written a persuasive essay. And, no, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing: A podcast has to have a point, a focus, and be organized too! However, I feel that podcasting is different because it’s almost like you’re having a conversation with someone, and you certainly don’t want to bore them (which, consequently, is why this reflection is broken up into two parts!) You want to keep your listeners interested and engaged! So I went back and tweaked my writing: Sure, my script still contains the meat of my persuasive essay. However, it also includes several nuances and comments that make the podcast sound more like ‘me’.
That last step is absolutely crucial for students. I don’t care how many mini lessons teachers teach about the importance of proofreading and that “there are several missed aches that a spell checker can’t cant’ catch catch.” (which is part of the poem “The The Impotence of Proofreading” by former-teacher Taylor Mali!) Students, who often feel that their writing has no purpose other than getting a grade from their teacher, will just use that spell checker and turn in their assignment without any kind of proofreading whatsoever. However, the nature of the podcasting technology – not to mention the motivation to put together a project to be proud of – forces that proofreading step. In addition, students can make their writing more meaningful because they too are allowed to add hints of their personalities in their podcasts that otherwise wouldn’t be possible in a traditional writing piece.
After my writing was also peer-edited by my ‘very’ supporting husband (thank you, sweetie!) it was time to move on to the technology phase of the project. That’s covered in the second part of my podcast reflection: The Podcasting Process.
This podcast is a reflection on my first podcast ‘All About Ebooks.’ Since the reflection got a tad lengthy, I decided to make a two part podcast: The first deals with the actual writing experience, while the second deals with learning about the podcast technology. This is the second part: The Podcasting Process:
As I had said earlier, I had listened to several podcasts in the past, but I didn’t know the first thing about creating them. A simple Google search led me to a 4 minute, easy-to-understand Youtube video on podcasting by Tinkernut.com. I took their advice and downloaded the free voice recording and editing software, Audacity, as well as the LAME plug-in that allows the user to export their audio recordings as MP3 files (which is one of the standard audio formats that people use to listen to music!) Then, came the actual recording session…
…and I’m sure you’re probably waiting for the gigantic technology horror story that involves computer crashes, lost work, and several gray hairs….but to be perfectly honest, the most stressful part of this section was finding the installation CD for my microphone. After that, I was cooking with gas. The basics are very intuitive: Press ‘record’ to record, ‘pause’ to pause your recording session, and ‘stop’ to stop the whole session. Not too hard, right?
Now for the really cool part that makes Audacity different from a regular voice recorder: The editing capability! This was the part of the technology that I thought would give me the most trouble. However, for me, editing really wasn’t that much harder than the actual recording session. All you have to do is go back and listen to your recording, and if there’s something you don’t like about a certain section, you simply select it, then can cut it out, revise it (with one of the many tools Audacity offers), or paste a new recording in part of the original one. All in all, with a little bit of trial and error, I was able to edit my nine-and-a-half minute podcast to my satisfaction in a little under an hour.
This is the part of the podcast technology that offers a new way for students to practice intonation, expression, and inflection when they read aloud: Being able to play-back their recordings allows them to hear what they truly sound like (as opposed to teachers or classmates telling them over and over again what they need to improve!) and then make revisions accordingly. What’s really nice about this technology is that students won’t have to rerecord their ‘entire’ script in order to edit their podcasts. All they need to do it rerecord the problem sections and replace them in the original recording. This allows them to focus on the precise areas that need improvement. Consequently, it also saves time since students won’t have to rerecord parts of the project that sound perfectly fine. Now, usually the best advice that I could give to anyone who wants to try out a new technology is to just ‘Go for it!” However, it’s well-known that students will get the most out of lessons when there is focus and guidance, especially when they’re encountering something that might be daunting or unclear. Because of this, I would highly recommend that teachers do mini-lessons that go over the basics of programs like Audacity, as well as audio editing.
Finally, I ended with what is probably the most controversial part of the podcast creation process: Publishing. This - more so than the writing, recording, and editing processes - was the most difficult part of creating a podcast for me. Tinkernut.com recommended the site ‘Podango’ to upload and publish my podcasts. However, the recession has hit internet sites as well, and Podango is currently in the process of shutting its doors for good. So that meant I had to find an uploading site on my own. Of course, the big problem with finding a free and safe podcast site is that podcasts are much bigger than text or image files (for example, my podcast about e-books is 8.75 megabytes as opposed to the 33 kilobyte Word document that houses my e-book script!) so there are many sites out there that want to charge membership fees to users. However, I’m a future teacher. I know how important the words ‘free or nearly free’ are to educators with tight budgets. Eventually, after doing some browsing and reviewing, I found the ‘Internet Archive’, which is a reputable non-profit site that is committed to creating a digital library in order to preserve digital media. I created an account there, answered questions about my work – and subsequently got it licensed with Creative Commons! – and…voila! My very first published podcast was complete!
Now, teachers need to think very long and hard about this final publishing step. If the right precautions are not taken, then the net can be a dangerous place. Now, students ‘could’ just create an MP3 of their work, copy it to a CD, and be done with it. However, that completely defeats one of the purposes ‘of’ podcasting: Sharing work with a larger audience. That’s why I’m all for publishing student podcasts online, as long as the following steps are followed:
*Administrators and parents are contacted and permission is obtained.
*Teachers thoroughly review student work to ensure it is free of personal information
*Students go over several recurring mini-lessons about computer and internet safety
*And links to student work are posted on a teacher-monitored school website
As long as safety measures are put into place, then students will be given the ability to make their work meaningful and accessible in ways we’ve never seen before.
Again, that was a lot of information to process and digest, so I’ll go over the main points of my podcasting experience and how it benefits students in reading, writing, speaking, and comprehension improvement:
*First, I used the traditional writing process before I even thought about using the podcast technology out there. This gets kids to practice writing in a meaningful way since they know their work could potentially reach a wider audience.
*Second, I researched, downloaded, and played with the audio editing and recording software Audacity. Then I recorded and edited my podcast. Going over mini lessons about this technology will help give students focus and confidence to use it. In addition, listening to themselves read aloud allows students to make corrections and improvements to their speech.
*Finally, I published my work on a reputable website: Internet Archive. While some teachers might have some reservations in posting student work on the ‘World Wide Web’, as long as the right permissions are obtained and computer and internet safety lessons are reinforced, publishing online allows students to proudly present their hard work to a wider audience.
Yes, this technology is not something that is going to be mastered in an hour’s time. However, the simplest things aren’t necessarily the most informative or the most rewarding. Don’t think or worry about how daunting a new technology like podcasting might be. Just do it! Make mistakes; learn from them. In the end, you’ll have created a piece of work that allowed you to practice and improve your reading, writing, and speaking skills; you’ll have learned how to use a new – and very useful! – technology; and – most importantly – you’ll be able to demonstrate just how important reading, writing, and technology can be to your students!
Christine Fusciardi · 2008-2009
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