S OMETHING O LD S OMETHING N EW U SING A FRICAN F OLKTALES AND A UDACITY ™ TO I MPROVE R EADING F LUENCY

6 th Grade 1:1 environment Greensboro Day School Marilyn Jones—Language Arts Teacher Sarah Hanawald—Technology Specialist Website (this presentation, bibliography of tales, links to software downloads, our addresses)

C OMPETITION FOR KIDS ’ TIME MEANS MANY ARE READING LESS THAN WE ’ D LIKE.

Y OU WANT CHILDREN TO READ FOR PLEASURE AND INSTRUCTION WITH ENTHUSIASM AND ENGAGEMENT.

H OW DO YOU IMPROVE FLUENCY TO FACILITATE LEARNING AND ENJOY READING ?

T HERE IS EXCELLENT RESEARCH ON FLUENCY.

R EHEARSAL Stated goal was to be prepared for recording. Rubric provided for students. Explicit Goals Underlying (sneaky teacher) Goals Repeated oral readings Listening comprehension Simultaneous reading and listening

W E ILLUSTRATE AFTER R ECORDING

M OTIVATION To sound good Have fun Create something “cool” Share their product with the world Develop fluency Accuracy of pronunciation Exposure to a variety of texts Teach the technology Learn to follow complex directions Student MotivationEducational Intent

U NEXPECTED B ENEFITS Creative outlet for students who aren’t necessarily artistic. Performance opportunity for shy students. Students with technical skills aren’t always leaders in other areas, they shone here. Every student makes progress and is able to work at his/her ability level. Practice with citation skills.

S O, HOW DO I ACTUALLY DO THIS ??? (A UDACITY 101) Download Audacity (it’s free!): How do I use it? It isn’t difficult to teach yourself fairly quickly if you are comfortable with software in general. Tutorials are available: It’s a good idea to make an mp3 yourself before you ask your students to do so.

H ERE W E G O … Step 1: Open Audacity Step 2: After practicing reading your story aloud, Click the Record button and tell your story.

W HEN YOU ’ RE FINISHED TELLING YOUR STORY, YOU MUST STOP THE RECORDING. Step 3: Click the Stop (NOT pause) button.

T O L ISTEN TO YOUR RECORDING … Click Rewind (Skip to Start) and then Click Play.

S AVE Y OUR A UDACITY P ROJECT. Go to file and save. This will allow you to save the project as an Audacity file. NOTE: IT IS NOT AN MP3 File, but an aud file that you can continue to record and edit in Audacity. To export as an mp3, you need to get the encoder lame from and save Next Go to File and select Export as MP3. The first time you export as an MP3 file, you will need to show Audacity where your Lame_enc.dll file is located.

C OOL S TUFF Y OU C AN D O : S ELECTOR K EY The Selector Key allows students to select segments to edit and replace with an improvement

T IME S HIFT T OOL Time Shift Tool allows students to move their sound clips left or right within the sound tracks.

Q UESTIONS ? T HANK Y OU ! Marilyn Jones: Sarah Hanawald: Credits: Images-- (mask) (cheetah)