Podcasting ... easy peasy

Take twenty four, mixed ability, Y6 children with a developing ICT capability, a forward looking teacher willing to 'give it a go', a school prepared to let children try things out, a set of wireless laptops that work with decent microphones connected, a good broadband connection with an ISP that does not block FTP, curriculum idea and Podium and podcasting becomes 'easy peasy' (this is a quote!)

Weather poems was the literacy context with the built in agenda of developing ideas around simile, metaphor and personification.

The children, working in pairs, chose their weather 'topic' and began to brainstorm ideas. These got transferred to phrases and notes and then lines were added to lines. The ideas were then developed in the script writing tool of Podium and allocated to the readers using the functionality built in to the script writer. The groups then, again using script writer functionality, rehearsed their poems.This was the first part of the session with the class teacher leading.

Then I turned up and showed the children how to make recordings using the software and how to import extra MP3 sounds (which I brought with me on a super fast USB drive) and to add images onto their recordings.

It was their turn then ... the initial task was to make a podcast of a single episode with three chapters which was to include their poem and some imported sounds. Many could not find the sounds that they wanted so recorded their own using Podium, saved them as MP3 files and re imported them into their podcasts!There were bees humming, birds singing, snow falling (tickling bells) etc.

About fifteen later it was all done. Poems rehearsed, sounds recorded, images chosen all done and dusted. Fourteen individual episodes all saved as Podium Projects( so that they could go back and add further poems as the year went on) and saved as MP3s so that they could import them into other podcasts they had in mind. And they were all published to the server and a happy group of children wrote down the URL so that they could go home and listen to their recorded works in iTunes.

With time to spare we then did the whole class podcast, one episode/poem. You can listen to the results of their labours by pasting this URL into your favourite aggregator.

http://www.podiumpodcasting.com/~182812/Y6W161107173226/rss.xml

... and not once did the ICT get in the way of the learning. The emphasis was on the quality of the literacy and the opportunity to write, speak and publish to a wide audience.