Podcasting by Committee Cont.

September 8 - So the big day arrived. Heather Dowd, our fearless technology coach and I team-taught the lesson. We decided to work with the students in the library as this would allow them to spread out, making it easier to record their voices without distraction. After teaching three groups we debriefed. The following were some of our take-aways:

• Students loved the lesson and were on task throughout. This was true for students who often have trouble focusing.
• I should have assigned the script (student fill in indicated areas) for homework to allow them more time to learn how to create a podcast using Garage Band.
• Very few students accessed the Garage Band instructions that Heather put together and linked to Blackboard; most either forged ahead on their own, asked us for help, or got help from students who had worked with GB before. (When we were asked, Heather and I directed students back to the directions.)
• After students finished their work, these student "experts" naturally started circulating, helping others.

September 9: The next morning, the 7th grade SS team (Sarah Becker, Doug Behse, and I), and Heather met with Apple Distinguished Educator Kathleen Ferenz. We spoke about how the lesson went the day before and then Kathleen came up with her plan for how to do it differently. These are the changes she made:

• Instead of using my script (an idea Chris received from an ADE who visited last year), Kathleen had students put their information in a table; the idea being that students would talk more naturally using these notes instead of my script. She had students do this in Pages rather than Word as "Pages is a multimedia tool rather than a simple word processor." (More on this later from Chris.)
• Kathleen had students move all of the graphics to iPhoto so that students could start archiving these for future use/reference. She also had them cite their photos by putting the URL in the iPhoto description box.
• She also had the students use Keynote to create their podcast intead of Garage Band. She feels that Keynote is better for short, one minute presentations, giving these presentations a more natural feel. It is more like a Powerpoint with voice over. You must make the audio in one take whereas you can do Garage Band audio in segments.

After the class we sat down again to discuss and compare the two lessons. I came away with a lot of new ideas, but I will need to work more with both podcast formats before I have a feel for what I think works best for which assignments. One thing is for sure, I got a lot of buy-in from my students. Most did not finish their podcast during the period, and even though I told students I would give them more class time, many dropped by to work on them. I saw them helping each other, working to perfect their assignments, and, without realizing it, they were going over the content multiple times and really mastering it. Time well spent! Chris will now take podcasting to a higher level with his math students.