KleinPod: Podcasting in Klein ISD

Last week, we created our first Vistas newscast. It went pretty well. They all did a great job! We need to focus on the following elements:

1. Reading out loud
2. Editing music/Mashing audio together
3. Learning who our audience is – is our school *really* interested in news that is happening in Italy?

The first one went out pretty well. Since I was in Austin, I don’t really know how many people listened to it, but when i came back on Monday, we critiqued our own podcast. We were pretty honest. It was too long and too boring. We almost couldn’t get through the whole thing. If *WE* couldn’t get through it, how can we expect listeners to listen?

So now, we are changing things up. It will be a news report just for Vistas with the intent to move into video production. The audio element is so hard to do alone. I say that my students know their audience, but did I really know MY audience? I’m going to HAVE to put a visual element.

I’m really going to have to start pushing the screen record feature for this class to reach the visual learners. I’ll still be using the great recording equipment; I’ll just use MovieMaker for now. I think that my needs will soon outgrow MovieMaker. That’s what seems to happen. I started out with Photostory, then went to MovieMaker, and now am looking at other software. It seems to be the logical step – baby steps. Baby steps are safe. If you had told me three years ago that I’d be working with professional audio equipment, I would have shrugged it off. But the baby steps taught me how to be comfortable, even when I got the mixing board (that I had NO business with).

I think I can still use the simple podcasting for my own use for test reviews and such, but I will still advise my students to use their notes and class assignments during the podcast.

For whatever reason, my external hard drive does work on school computers. It works just fine on my laptop at home and my desktop at home. I’m still buying a new external hard drive, however. 320GB, baby! I figured that with all of the sound files I’ve been collection, I’ll need a bigger storage device eventually.

Today, my students used the LMS discussion board to listen to the musical selections that they chose last week. Each student found a copyright free song that they thought represented Vistas, and they uploaded it to the discussion board with their reasons for choosing it. They then had to listen to everyone else’s song and make a comment about each of them.

Thursday and Friday will be spent writing a script for their segment of the Getting to Know Vistas podcast. I plan on having them record on Monday and Tuesday. I still don’t know how I’ll set that up. I think that each group might need one full day working in the studio, so that means that I’ll have to come up with some kind of stations activitiy for next week.

1. Record the podcast and edit in the audio.
2. Fill out a Podcast Rubric for a peer’s podcast.
3. Blog about their experiences with podcasting so far.
4. ???
5. ???

I’ll figure something out. If you have any ideas, please post them! I am hoping that I can get the rest of my final exams figured out today, otherwise I’ll be doing a test review the traditional way. At least I have a back-up plan!

We are still working with PBWiki and the settings with Lightspeed. I will be a little frustrated if this site doesn’t go through – one of the main benefits I see in technology and this podcasting class is that we can connect with the community. The community doesn’t know much about us, and what they do know is often incorrect. Same thing with other educators in the district. I want the community to see how amazing the school is, and that we do learn, and that our students defy their expectations.