Over the past two weeks, both fourth and sixth graders began preparation for creating their own podcast.
It. Has. Been. AWESOME.
We've been using Soundtrap for Education and the process has been fairly straightforward. I love that the kids can log-in with their Google accounts, which always makes things easier. It also has the option to recall previous versions of the recording - which is a must with students!
A few notes -
Microphones make a HUGE difference. We tried without them, and the sound was only ok, I mean, after all, we're in a school environment, there is no such thing as silence! I found a few old, gaming-style microphones and that made a huge difference, even with the loud-ish background noise!
The transcript feature is awesome, when it works. And editing is very simple, i-Movie-esque, even.
The sound effects ROCK. The kids had a blast adding them, and even created some of their own in the process! Soundtrap has something like 5000 available sound clips to use!
One of the best parts is that podcasting provides a natural formative assessment. I mean, what better way to assess fluency (among other things,) than listening to kids creat podcasts, amIright?
We wrap up the fourth grade podcasts, their narrative stories, this week. Next week starts sixth grade podcasts on idioms. I'll share links when they're ready!
Over the past two weeks, both fourth and sixth graders began preparation for creating their own podcast.
We've been using Soundtrap for Education and the process has been fairly straightforward. I love that the kids can log-in with their Google accounts, which always makes things easier. It also has the option to recall previous versions of the recording - which is a must with students!
