Podcast - Assignment 

Your task is to create a podcast that is a narrative about something. Podcasts are non visual stories that are based on voice and music. They continue to be very popular.  They have experienced a renaissance and continue to be developed by major players in the digital entertainment market.  You may pick the topic.

Possible Topics

Your ed tech journey - what technologies have aided you from k-12 until now.

The digital divide - How Ai has contributed to new opportunities and inequity.

The phone in schools debate - Summary of each side and a conclusion.

How technology can improve teaching and learning in your classroom

The podcast should contain a mix of voice and a minimum of 8 audio clips.

Voice you can use your voice or one of many text to voice tools freely available on the web.

, sounds, samples (more is okay) linked together on a common element or combined to enhance the theme.

Audio clips

Excerpts from each song should stay around 5-15 seconds each; minor exceptions can be made for speeches or spoken word samples but keep music samples appropriate to your story.

Every attempt should be made to make the songs sound like they were meant to connect and compliment your narrative. Appropriate use of different tracks (http://screencast.com/t/xz1FqjXCy)and effects is expected. Use of special effects is encouraged (fade in, fade out, echo). Audio volumes should be adjusted for fluidity.

You will need a microphone (built in mic is fine for this activity for your voice or use a word processor for text to speech.

You will need Audacity software – Mac people can use Audacity or Garageband - let's discuss your situation.

Audacity tutorials are all over the web

Topic Selection: Possible topics:

1. The soundtrack of your life
2. Songs/Artists that have influenced you / Leaders who have influenced you /
4. Your evolution

1. as a music consumer 
2. as an educator
3. as a learner 

Software 

Download and install Audacity to create your podcast. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

Save your Audacity project as you build it (Save often and to a place you can find it – hint desktop)

You also need to download the LAME encoder to convert your completed Audacity project to an MP3. Download it where you can find it because at some point you will be asked http://screencast.com/t/8DLxg1oHp2j

Where to get your content?

Most of it you will create by speaking - (maybe, maybe not, I found many clips to do the talking)

While this is permissible, you are telling a story. You can get help. But it needs to be your story.

You probably have many items in the form of digital music now.

You probably have a phone with a voice recorder, or a built-in mic on your laptop.

(I did mine with built in mic)

If it is on YouTube you can get it

I used this to get stuff off of Youtube instead of

Pulldown the entire clip, edit out what you want (Audacity). Use fade in/fade out

http://www.listentoyoutube.com/index.php

Save your completed podcast as an mp3 sound file. This requires downloading the Audacity Lame encoder.

Each element should be on a separate track. ( You can deviate from this somewhat if necessary)

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?i=lame-mp3&s=install 

Where to host your content?

There are numerous places you can host audio files. Might as well stick with Google

7 to 10 minutes seconds long, by due date. Absolutely no inappropriate music excerpts will be tolerated (watch language, sexual overtones, mention of drugs/alcohol, etc.* use your own judgment, we are not in K-12 but I don’t want to listen to bi*#&%es and h*#s for 10 minutes either). It is your responsibility to secure the songs. I recommend you craft your narrative first and include in it the times and places for your musical samples to maximize the impact. Start with a sketch

Objectives

Scoring Guide