Student Podcast Projects Alan Bessette Poole Gakuin University GloCALL

Goal of presentation Outline what I did to guide students in producing their own podcasts Provide resources so that you can create podcasts with your own students

Podcast projects Interview Radio podcast

Goals Motivate students Providing a real audience Encouraging student to be more careful when producing language Challenging students Provide authentic opportunities to use English Continuity with course goals

Background Number of students: 9 Level: high intermediate to advanced Length: one semester (about 14 weeks)

Podcasts were one in a series of projects School newspaper Video projects Cooking show Introducing Osaka Castle Goal: Graduation project Video introduction of three world heritage sites in the Osaka area

Tools for project Wordpress blog ( Place to upload podcasts Open source blog platform Podpress ( Podcast plugin for Wordpress Automatically creates feeds (RSS2, iTunes and ATOM and BitTorrent RSS) Audacity ( Open source editing software Recording studio

Alternative tools Hosting alternatives Blogger ( and Edublogs ( Both have plugins similar to podpress Odeo ( and Podomatic ( Not as flexible, but make uploading a podcast easy Only for podcasts

Alternative tools Sound editing Garage Band for Macs Quicktime Pro Quiet room with computer and mike or digital recorder

Podcast projects Student interviews: Students interviewing each other About summer vacation About music Student radio podcasts: Students creating and producing a radio podcast Interviews and music

Organization Students divided into groups of 3 Two performers One sound engineer and editor Responsible for cueing performers and editing the final podcast All share in deciding content of podcast

First step - Planning Most important Decide Roles Contents of podcast Plan the language that is needed Use dictionaries Use teacher as resource

Planning: Interview Deciding interview topic How to introduce topic and interviewee Decide on questions to be asked Outline answers to questions How to conclude interview Decide on blog layout for podcast Title Explanation Pictures

Planning: Radio Podcast Choose songs Outline topics to be talked about Upcoming events Movies News Decide on blog layout for podcast Title Song list Pictures

Music resources for radio podcasts Podsafe Audio: 24 genres and 1,000 + artists Podsafe Music Network: 2,834 pages of songs Must register A few songs cost money to download

Copyright issues Songs are under Creative Commons license Cannot use songs for commercial purposes Must attribute songs to the artist Podcasting Legal Guide

Producing the podcast Practice before recording Record in Audacity and save recordings as mp3 files Record the radio podcast in small sections Intro, talk between songs, and conclusion

Editing - Interviews Interviews were single small files 5 – 8 MB / less than 10 minutes Editing done with Audacity Cleaning up the recording Eliminating long silences, retakes

Editing – Radio podcasts Recorded in sections so there were 8 to 12 small files that needed to be spliced together 20 to 30 MB / 20 to 30 minutes Editing done with Audacity Cleaning up student recordings Splicing files together

Resources for using Audacity Recording Audio sting/tutorials/recording_audacity/recording_audacity. html sting/tutorials/recording_audacity/recording_audacity. html Importing and Editing sting/tutorials/import_audacity/import_audacity.html sting/tutorials/import_audacity/import_audacity.html Adding music tracks sting/tutorials/music_tutorial/music_tutorial.html sting/tutorials/music_tutorial/music_tutorial.html

Uploading to blog or website

Assessment Teamwork How well did the team members work together? How well did the team members share the work? Planning & Practice Completion of podcast planning worksheets Final product should reflect amount of practice

Assessment Presentation Presence of required components Creativity How interesting Number of comments Language skills Self-evaluation by students

Student feedback (Radio Podcasts) Overall Interesting & good experience Being a DJ was fun Enjoyed choosing songs New experience

Student feedback (Radio Podcasts) Benefits Having to talk for a long time provided speaking practice Learned new vocabulary

Student feedback (Radio Podcasts) Student suggestions Engineer role not needed All group members should speak More practice time

Reflections Spend more time with editing skills Have all students speaking Other types of podcasts

Ideas for podcasts Dramatic readings Radio play, e.g., Orson Wells ’ War of the Worlds Roundtable discussion of literature or current issue / problem Presentation of research CMC