Module 4

The concept of digital storytelling is fascinating - and the parable about the teachers feeling that the use of books and writing would undermine a student's real learning was poweful. However, I need to start slowly and I focused on the aspects of basic audio podcasting. For several years we have used the term podcast as a generic name for students submitting an audiofile on a given question in the year 12 Studies of Religion course. Basically it was the old oral task simply bypassing the handing in of tapes, discs, etc. Complications arose with the different types of files and whether we could open all these files on the college server. With the advent of our Year 11's in 2011 having personal Macbooks, we will be able to significantly refine this task when they come to Year 12 in 2012. We can actually start assessing the effectiveness of the presentation in real terms. As the task is on a key personality, we can encourage dramatic readings from the writings of the person (even by way of voice manipulation a student could present the readings at a different pitch or as a "male" voice), expect the use of sound loops to heighten effect and possibly suggest incorporating extracts from news bulletins or academic lectures as secondary source material.
I have thought of applications for a teacher produced podcast as well. Voiced feedback when returning tasks could be archived so students could tap into the comments again when they use these tasks for revision purpose later in the year. When we know that a number of students might be missing from a lesson due to sport/excursions/meetings, we could simply record the lesson and edit highlights so that those missing can confidently assess what they might have missed. Producing a podcast of material that enriches a topic could assist in diversification for the gifted and talented.
Listening to the US podcast on teacher use made clear that multi-media podcasts (vodcasts) were likely to be limited for a while to come due to the data space required when video components are introduced. However, it is great to know that this dimension of podcasting is ready to be utilised - and if not always available as an active download, could be produced through the tools of garageband and saved via disc or ipod or ipad.