June? eTwinning? It must be podcasting...

I met up with a lovely bunch of French teachers (from France) and teachers of French (from Scotland) last night and this morning I'm helping them discover the wonderful world of the podcast. It's also been a great opportunity to update a few links on where languages teachers can go to get help and resources for podcasting.

I'll not have much time so I'm just showing how you can produce a regular 'learning log' podcast of what goes on in your students' world à la Radio Sandaig, and how that can develop into something more explicitly around assessment for learning by plugging Adam's kids' Rate My Mates two-stars-and-a-wish.

Your royalty free podsafe music is brought to you today by Incompetech and the Google search phrases "sheep bah mp3" (which leads to these great animal sounds) and "traffic noises" (which leads to some worryingly wide ranging car crash sounds). Freesounds.com is also one of the easiest ways to get great sound effects (thanks, Oscar). I'm also going to be reminding us all how important it is to right-click everything to save it to your computer first, before importing to your radio show or podcast in Audacity. The group you can see above took my guidance on reducing background noise in a vibrant classroom - turn the underneaths of desks into your recording studio.

I'll be suggesting that they use the eduBuzz support pages on podcasting as well as the MFL specific guidance on the MFLE.

I'm hoping there'll be time at the end to talk about how this is going to look in the classroom, how collaboration is going to take place. It might all happen on the eTwinning TwinSpace (podcast on how to use it on the MFLE) or on a more ad hoc basis through a Google Doc or wiki. Above all, the role of the teacher has to be made clear. The teacher isn't clicking, cutting and generally getting in the way. The teacher's standing back, suggesting good ways of developing things further, sharing tips and learning from what the kids might have to offer.

For those wanting to get going straightaway without installing on the computer you can use Portable Apps or the French versions at Framasoft and Framakey (thanks to Phillipe for that). You'll also want to check out your French legal stuff for getting parental permission for podcasting.

Download etwinning_june.wav

Comments

[John]

Hi Ewan,
thanks for the link.
We are starting to do a bit of 2 stars and a wish with some playful emoticon support.
The teacher's standing back is one of the hardest things to when children are producing audio or video but often leads to interesting developments. I try to put my hands in my pockets.

[Paul Harrington]

Hi Ewan,
A timely post on podcasting, I agree with John, that one of the things that is essential for teachers, is that once we have done our job by teaching them the simple techie bits of say Audacity we must leave it up to our pupils to be creative in their own ways with the technology - we have to stand back, to make sure that we don't exert undue influence on their ideas... do listen to some of the Y6 work in progress and Y6 podcasting club work on our podomsatic site - where I have tried to take a step back and let the ideas flow!!!!
Paul.
p.s. Is it ture that you are speaking in the Uni of Glamorgan in Treforest, on Wednesday afternoon of next week??

[Ewan McIntosh]

I am Paul - does this mean we might finally meet?! And thanks for your link - I think it'll be helpful for the primary teachers to have as many examples as possible in MFL to show them IT CAN BE DONE!

[Paul Harrington]

It might just happen I have PPA ( yay Primary Teachers prep time) on a Wednesday afternoon - so if my late registration is accepted by the Uni and I can get permission to go offsite... you never know (lol)... might see you Wednesday : )

[Caroline Cassels]

Thanks for all these great links. I had given up looking for royalty free music. I will be able to jazz up my S1 en of year speaking demo.