Check one. Check two.
For this post, I thought I would share a project I completed as an example for an English 12 class that has all of the elements of a good podcast: music, voice, and sound effects. It's not a podcast though, it's a scene from a play.
The assignment asked students to use audio recording equipment and software to recreate a scene from Hamlet with one, two, or three classmates. When I was preparing this assignment, I stumbled on the audio effects for voices within the program, and I realized that I could play Polonius, Gertrude, and Hamlet myself. Once I had those tracks in place, I could layer in the music and the sound effects.
This assignment works well for English, drama, and even media classes. Do you see opportunities for recorded scenes or skits in other subject areas?
Getting back to the recording, if you have an attentive ear, you might find it funny that Polonius is 'stabbed' through a curtain with a bullwhip. "Oh, I am slain!" :)
I hope you enjoy the show! Play on.
PS. One problem that I encountered while creating this post is that video streaming services (and this blog) generally do not allow the uploading of mp3 files. I could have put an mp3 file into Google Drive and share a link to the file with public access. However, I chose to create an image in Microsoft Word, screenshot it, and then use a video editing program (Adobe Premiere Elements on my laptop, but iMovie would do the exact same thing) to create and export a movie file to my desktop.
It takes a few steps, but students usually need help with this stage of a project. Students often ask how they can 'get this to my teacher' and I show them how to share/export a file, upload to our online server (OneDrive), and then share it with their teacher.
Renya - It's very fun, but there's kind of an echoey effect? Which is probably fine for most people but it's triggering my auditory processing issues and making it hard to follow the actual words.
ReplyDeleteHi Renya. Thanks for the feedback. The echo was some kind of 'hall effect' that was added during the recording. I may have selected it to create a sense of space, but I did not know that it would affect listeners in that way. I appreciate the reminder that our choices can have unintended impacts.
DeleteChanging the voices to allow students to play multiple characters is a super fun audio effect! What audio program did you use for this? It has a really nice blend of sound effects and music - not over done, but fitting with the drama of this piece!
ReplyDeleteI also had a similar issue of uploading my audio file to my blog. I used imovie to create a "still" image with my podcast audio, uploaded this .mov to youtube, and then embedded it in my blog. Too many steps for students! Soundcloud seems to be a better option. You can upload an mp3 there and then there is the option to embed/share the code in your blog.
Thanks for the feedback! I like the Soundcloud idea, and I will try this platform out if I will be sharing mp3s publicly. In general, however, I ask students to simply upload their files to OneDrive and then share a link with their teacher. For me, that is a quick, in-house, preferable, and mostly private way to share.
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