always learning

Musical Composition and Podcasting in the Elementary Classroom

Back in November, our absolutely amazing Elementary music teacher, Vince Bullen, and I led an EARCOS Weekend Workshop on GarageBand. Our goal was to spend two full days exploring GarageBand in a hands-on, project-based environment, tailored to the needs of both music and elementary classroom teachers. Even with this very specific focus, we had 10 international school teachers from around Asia join us in Bangkok for the weekend.

Thankfully, Vince is a complete expert in all things musical, so he started the workshop off with a thorough overview of pretty much everything GarageBand has to offer: from creating your own music, to editing pre-created tracks, to making “magic GarageBand” songs. Within about 1 minute of his introduction I had learned a number of useful tricks:

• How to raise and lower the volume of a specific track (use the little “down arrow” on any track to get the volume for that specific track)
• How to block out background noise and get rid of the “echo” and “reverb” on self-recorded tracks
• How to edit individual notes in any track (including pre-created tracks)

After getting the musical basics, the workshop switched gears to learn about easy ways to integrate music, video, photos and voice recordings to make enhanced podcasts.  I started off this session by sharing the absolutely fantastic podcasts our fifth graders here at ISB made at the end of last school year as part of the Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop book club unit (here’s our unit planner), and then went over the basics of recording your voice and adding jingles, images or movies to a podcast. It always amazes me just how easy it is to create a podcast with GarageBand!

Once our participants had the basics, we split into two groups to delve deeper into the ways that teachers can use GarageBand in the classroom. Under Vince’s extremely capable guidance, the music teachers worked together to create their own songs using MIDI instruments and all of the pre-created tracks in Garage Band.

Separately, the classroom teachers worked with me to collaborate on their very first podcast – a multimedia book recommendation they can share with their students in class, which can also be used as a model for student-created podcasts:

One of the things the classroom teachers were most interested in was the process that I use to guide students through a technology-rich project like a podcast, specifically using the MYP Technology Design Cycle. Although it was created for middle years students, I find the design cycle to be an authentic, practical, useful way to tackle technology projects. It’s actually the process you naturally go through when working with technology, but if you don’t break down the steps, you can tend to skip through and end up at the computer before you’re ready.

So we ended up spending quite a bit of time working through the stages of the design cycle, as I would with a class of students. Here’s how I would break down a podcasting project according to the design cycle:

Investigate:

• Explore with the software – some time to play with Garage Band to get to know the basics – what are the strengths and weaknesses of this tool, what can it do, with the goal to generally feel comfortable with the tool towards the beginning of the project.
• Brainstorm a topic for your podcast (even if there is a specific topic, each group/individual will most likely have some individual choice involved. At this stage, it’s important for them to come up with a number of ideas (thought through to a basic level) so they can choose the best one. Have students justify their choice to you.
• Organize resources: take the time to figure out what is needed to complete the project (pictures, books, cameras, special clothing, etc). Make sure they have a list and it’s clear who is going to bring in each item.
• If any research needs to be done, this would be the best time. Begin with a focused research question and organize all relevant information in one central place.

Plan:

• Write your script (you might want to use a checklist like this with your students)
• Use a storyboard to organize your pictures and audio. (this one is more for digital video, so you may want to change the directions on the boxes).

Create:

• This stage should be no longer than the Investigate stage (as long as they have done a good job with the Investigate and the Plan). This should be simply transferring all of the work they’ve already done on paper to their finished podcast.
• Export the finished product into AAC format if you have pictures (without pictures, you can choose .mp3)
• Publish the podcast on iTunes or a podcasting service like Gcast, PodBean, or Podomatic. (Usually the teacher will compile all student podcasts into one account so that the RSS feed includes all student work. As a teacher, you can also embed a widget on your class blog or website so parents and students can listen anytime).
• Create an iTunes channel for your podcast following these steps.

Evaluate:

• Listen to their podcast, looking for strengths and weaknesses – what did we do well? what do we need to improve?
• Listen to other group podcasts, looking for similarities and differences, what did we do well? what do we need to improve?

Finally, on the second workshop day, participants had a chance to develop their own GarageBand projects for use in the classroom. Teachers worked on everything from designing a podcasting project from scratch, following the technology design cycle and Understanding by Design curriculum planning process, to creating their own musical compositions, to exploring new ways to integrate technology into classroom practice.

In my opinion, podcasts are a fantastic way to share student learning, allow time for reflection and metacognition and to connect your classroom to other learners around the world. This quick, but engaging, weekend workshop was a great way to get participants excited about this new mode of learning and to put the process of implementing authentic technology projects into practice in a safe environment.

How do you use podcasting in your classroom?

Three of our wonderful grade 5 classrooms (Chrissy, Robin and Ali) have been collaborating all year on a Reader’s and Writer’s workshop project with 4 other schools around the world.

We initially made the connection because we were looking for a meaningful, year-long, collaboration based on our curricular focus for the year (Reader’s Workshop). Luckily, we were able to find four schools using the same curriculum structure to teach reading and writing.

We started the year (and the project) by sharing student writing and reading and commenting on each other’s blog posts. However, one of our major goals for the project was to develop a weekly, entirely student-produced, podcast focused on reading strategies called Students Teaching Students.

Considering none of us here at ISB have ever done a regular podcast with students, we knew it might take a while to get it off the ground, but we wanted to make sure it was meaningful, appropriate, and authentic use of the technology to enhance our curricular goals.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve finally gotten the podcasting part of the project off the ground. It was surprisingly easy!

Here’s what we did to get started:

Chrissy, Robin, Ali and I spent some time brainstorming the steps that students would need to go through to produce a thoughtful podcast on a weekly basis – and how to make it practical within our laptop cart teaching environment.

We decided that we would use our student book club groups for the current Historical Fiction unit as the podcasting groups. Each week one group would produce a podcast during Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop time. To help ensure they are able to produce their podcast independently, we provided a checklist of steps.

Once we had the process organized, we introduced the idea to the students over two lessons.

During the first lesson we listened to a sample podcast (I chose a language-learning podcast so that students would be able to focus on the introduction and the features of the podcast instead of the content).

As we listened, students were asked to think about the different features of the podcast. They then brainstormed in teams what makes a good podcast. We came up with this list:

• Exciting, catchy, but short, musical introduction.
• Music is quiet while speaking.
• Clear introduction of each speaker, all guests, the “big idea” of the podcast, this episode number & title, and the topic of this episode.
• The speaker uses enthusiasm and excitement in their loud, clear voice.
• Use first names only.
• The show should sound like a conversation between podcasters.
• Keep it interesting for the listener.
• Stay focused (when writing your script & when recording).
• Everyone in the group needs to have a speaking part in the script.

Once we had an idea of what a good podcast sounds like, we talked about the quality of the intro and outro music. Students were given the challenge of creating their own intro and outro music for the entire class’ podcast based on the criteria we brainstormed:

• catchy
• calm – not distracting
• not too loud
• fades out at the end
• fast-ish to get listeners excited
• include a catch phrase (optional)
• relate to our topic – gives a feeling for our topic
• less than 30 seconds (including any catch phrases)

They spent about 30 minutes using Garage Band (which they had previously learned about in music class thanks to another fantastic teacher, Vince) creating either an intro or an outro (in small teams or individually). At the end of the lesson, we voted on which songs would be used for the entire class.

Once we had our music for our class podcast, we were ready to practice creating a podcast to learn how the different tools work and to go through the process of brainstorming an idea, writing a script, producing a podcast, and exporting the file into proper format.

We spent an entire language arts block (1.5 hours) going through the process, following the checklist. Here’s how we broke it down:

15 minutes to brainstorm an idea for the podcast. All groups had to create a podcast for students learning how to be a better reader using the different Reader’s Workshop Strategies they had learned that week. Once they chose a strategy, they had to be able to explain it and share how it helped them read their current book.

45 minutes to write a script following this basic outline which we brainstormed and agreed upon at the beginning of the lesson:

• Welcome to Room 229′s Historical Fiction Podcast Series
• Episode Title: This is Episode 1
• This episode is brought to you by:
• Introduction of podcast (what is this podcast about for first time listeners)
• Introduction of cast (speakers)
• Introduce the book (or series of books) you’re reading
• Introduce the Reader’s Strategy that you’re going to be talking about
• Describe the strategy
• Explain how you used the strategy to help you read this book
• Share examples
• Closing
• Looking forward to learning with you next week

20 minutes to record their podcast (no editing due to time constraints).

At the end of the lesson, we listened to all the trial podcasts to share constructive feedback for each group.

I was very impressed with the quality of podcasts that the students were able to produce in such a short time frame, especially for their very first experience!

Since this trial run, student podcasts have been produced in small groups, one group per week, during the Reader’s Workshop time. We even decided to create our own channel on iTunes to share our podcasts with our global partners (and anyone else who’s interested in Reader’s Workshop strategies)!

Overall, this was a surprisingly easy project to put into place. I’m always a little intimidated and nervous when I try something new, but this ended up being even easier than I expected. Garage Band is so easy to use, the students were so excited to share their learning, the book groups were such a natural fit for creating podcasts, and uploading the files to a podcasting host (G-cast) and then creating the iTunes channel were a breeze!

Although we’ve only really just gotten started, I can already see how powerful this process will be for our students. Since I’m a newbie at podcasting, what else should we be doing?

One of the perks of being an Apple Distinguished Educator is being able to represent Apple at their educational events around the world. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of presenting a session on Garage Band at Apple’s Think Ahead Roadshow (at my very favorite hotel, The Metropolitan) here in Bangkok.

Wow. I’m still a little bit speechless. The Roadshow was so well-organized, so clearly grounded in sound educational practices, and so totally focused on what we need in the classroom and in our schools. Honestly, I’m still a little surprised that all of this was being presented by a vendor. The one-day session was a lot better than many educational (and edtech) conferences I’ve attended.

Now, we all know I’m already sold on Apple, but if I wasn’t, this would have convinced me to head straight over to the Apple store and pick up a new MacBook. For starters, Adrian Lim (one of the regional managers for Southeast Asia) gave an absolutely fantastic keynote presentation that actually brought tears to my eyes.

Everything that Adrian said was something I have thought, said or heard at one time or another as a teacher in the field of educational technology. His explanation of the stages of technology integration, implementation and professional development in schools was stated so clearly and so accurately it’s almost unbelievable that he’s not actually teaching right now. The background information and research about our 21st century learners described exactly what I’ve been learning and thinking about in my PLN, and the approach for how to engage those students to create a 21st century classroom was almost word-for-word what I was planning to share in Doha the following week.

On top of all that Adrian shared Apple’s vision for the 21st century school, their revised Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow Today program, and of course all of the easy-to-use and innovative software that Apple is known for. All I could think as he was presenting was that we need him in our schools, presenting this to full faculty and the parents. This was more powerful than so many keynotes I have seen delivered by “big names” in education and technology. And it was delivered by a vendor, who’s not teaching, and in fact, not working in schools at all.

Following Adrian’s keynote were two hands-on sessions. I delivered the one on Garage Band and a fellow ADE, Michael Koronkiewicz, presented a session on iMovie.

I have to admit, I was a little nervous to present on a software package in front of the people who work for the company that designed the software. Um, who’s telling who how the software works again? But, it was by far the easiest presentation I’ve ever had to give. All of the materials were provided for me (scripts for my “students” who recorded their own podcasts, research on a wiki already prepared, 15 MacBooks and iPods all ready set up and ready to go, and even some prizes to hand out to the “best” group project!). Plus, I had at least one tech support person in the room at all times. Oh, how I wish that was the case on a regular basis in the classroom. What a breeze!

The best part about the presentation (for me) was how much it reflected my philosophy and classroom practice. Each piece of material provided by Apple was almost exactly (but usually a little bit better than) how I would do it in my own classroom. The “project” my “students” completed was very similar to something I’m doing with grade 5 right now, and I never felt like I was “selling my soul” to present on behalf of a vendor. In fact, I learned quite a few new things that I’m planning to put into practice over the next few weeks. How often can we actually say that about technology vendors?

In addition to the one-day session, I just have to share how supportive, friendly, and approachable all of the Apple staff are. I never once felt pressured to do or say something I didn’t believe in, I was consistently encouraged to share my voice and my opinion on the tools. There were plenty of times in my presentations when I recommended web-based services that would accomplish the same tasks (but are not sold or provided by Apple) and this was encouraged.

If I wasn’t already convinced that Apple is the best choice for education, I certainly would be now. Tools designed specifically for education, with software that could not be easier to use, and support personnel that actually understand education and are as passionate about the changes we need to see in schools as I am. Why wouldn’t we want that in our classroom?

Images by Kelvin Kong