Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The BEds are back... and this time they're podcasting

One of the courses I really enjoy teaching is the Computers, Creativity and Education class. We look at a wide range of creative computer use, for example, the other day they aimed to tell a story in five frames and I posted a request for you to have a look at their pictures (The BEd Students Tell A Story).


spyPod
Originally uploaded by DavidDMuir
In yesterday's class, they had a go at podcasting. I wrote about the approach we took last year (Another podcast... and an explanation) and we followed pretty much the same pattern this time. The students formed themselves into three groups, planned a podcast on a topic studied during the module and then recorded it in Garageband. The three podcasts are available below:
It is worth pointing out that all three groups were working in the same room using the Macintosh's built in microphone so there is a lot of noise leakage. It is also clear that in a couple of the podcasts, the students were on the edge of dissolving into laughter. (There were probably more outakes, where one or all of the students burst out laughing, than there is material in the podcast itself!) In this case, however, the the process is the important part. We wanted them to see that, with the right software, it is not technically difficult to produce a podcast.

Do you have any advice you want to offer the students? Are there any school/education podcasts you think they ought to listen to?

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