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Embracing Creativity
Content creation is essential to the learning process. Using text, photos, audio, and video, students can easily express themselves and produce awe-inspiring work. Projects that include photos, illustrations, and diagrams capture the imagination and engage the viewer. When students have an opportunity to create a product using multiple media formats with video and audio elements to demonstrate classroom-acquired knowledge, their engagement in the task skyrockets, their interaction with the content deepens, and their learning gets enhanced. This brings their learning up to the modification level of the SAMR model (Puentedura, 2012).
In 2015, Common Sense Media—a nonprofit organization that aims to provide resources for students, families, and educators that help them thrive in the world of media and technology—conducted a study on teenage media use. It names four ways teens use technology: they (1) passively consume it, (2) interactively consume it, (3) communicate with it, and (4) create content with it. The study finds, “Only 3% of tweens’ and teens’ digital media time is spent on content creation” (Common Sense Media, 2015, p. 22).
To truly integrate technology and redefine learning with it, teachers must move students beyond content consumption and into content creation that shows their thinking and spreads their ideas. The tools exist to make this possible, but students still need teachers to facilitate these experiences and opportunities so that students see the possibilities at their disposal.
To effectively produce and publish work in the 21st century, students need to understand the many ways they can use media to demonstrate their learning and make their thinking visible. In its Standards for Students, ISTE (2016) calls students with these skills empowered learners and creative communicators. These students know how to communicate complex ideas through original work that allows them to creatively express themselves and publish to a global audience.
We designed this chapter’s lessons to give you the knowledge and tools to provide students with opportunities to become creative communicators in a world of passive consumers. When students learn how to use tools for utilizing green screens and creating podcasts, screencasts, and app-smashed projects, they learn that they can manipulate multiple pieces of media to creatively communicate their own unique message. Engaging students with this chapter’s lessons creates in them a mindset shift from passive consumption to ownership.
Before we engage in these lessons, we share four tips here to support you in developing your creative classroom.
1. Do not be afraid to let students take the lead: You probably already have an expert, or even multiple experts, sitting in front of you. Take advantage of this.
2. Allow students to have choice in the way they show their learning: It may not engage all students to use the same tool or create a product in the same medium. One student may best show his or her learning in a blog or podcast, while another excels at using a green screen or screencasting. Expose them to options, and let them choose.
3. Stay open to a variety of outcomes: When you try something new in your classroom, it can seem unclear how it will turn out. Taking smart risks is good. Model risk taking for students by trying new things. Even if the products fail or don’t turn out how you expected, learning still takes place; growth still occurs.
4. Persevere through problems: When issues arise, use every resource at your disposal to figure out how to make it work. Don’t give up.
This chapter covers three different categories of content creation—(1) imagery, (2) moviemaking, and (3) audio recording. It ends with a NOW lesson set on creating products that combine these skills. Exposing students to the lessons in this chapter will empower them with tools to creatively communicate their learning and deepen their interaction with technology at an appropriate level for grades 6–8 students. This chapter aims to allow grades 6–8 students to engage in content creation beyond the estimated 3 percent of their digital media time they spend as content creators. All students deserve to embrace their creativity by becoming content creators instead of remaining passive content consumers.
Creating Experiences Through Imagery
In these NOW lessons, students will learn the many ways they can use images (including pictures or photographs) to enhance the quality of their projects and presentations and their understanding of the classroom content’s core concepts and ideas. Students will create products using images and share them with an authentic audience beyond the walls of the classroom. These skills will transfer to all types of multimedia projects. Grades 6–8 students need to develop their skills beyond simple photography by developing more complex skills in picture and photo editing. For example, by the end of eighth grade, students should be able to include images that convey meaning without text. They should also be able to utilize various camera angles, shot types, filters, and depth-of-field techniques to enhance projects.
Learning goal:
I can incorporate appropriate images into a project.
Novice: Using Pictures in Projects
Images can enhance a lesson or project and bring material to life. Knowing how to effectively use appropriate images in projects will benefit students throughout their education and beyond. Appropriate images are ones that are relevant, high quality, and enhance the content’s meaning. For example, adding data-derived charts to a report can help audiences more easily understand the data a student collects. This lesson also gives you an opportunity to ensure students understand copyright with regard to photos and images found online. Google Images (https://images.google.com) includes a Usage Rights filter under its Tools menu. We also list several copyright-free image resources in chapter 5 in the lessons for Engaging in Legal and Ethical Behaviors Online (page 123).
Students can use a variety of project-design apps and services to include pictures in their work, such as Tackk (https://tackk.com), Canva (www.canva.com), and Adobe Spark (https://spark.adobe.com). For this lesson, we recommend Canva, a web-based and iOS design program that allows users to make posters, brochures, presentations, and other printed materials. It requires students to sign in with a school G Suite email address or another school email address, and it is free to use, with optional premium features. If you prefer, you can adapt this process for use with a variety of other free and premium design apps.
Process: Designing a Picture Project
Use the following seven steps to help students design a simple picture project.
1. Have students select an app or website to use to create their picture project. If you choose an app for students to use, make sure you introduce students to its user interface and basic features and functions.
2. Ask students to start a new design project and choose a design type or theme. Designs in presentation and poster categories are ideal because they scale onto 8.5- × 11-inch paper.
3. Have students choose to either use a premade layout or start a design of their own.
4. Tell students to experiment with different design elements by adding shapes, grids, frames, and photos to their project. They should also customize these elements to adjust their size, color, and location on the page.
5. Have students add text elements of different sizes and fonts.
6. Depending on the design type they selected, have students change their project’s background image, color, or design.
7. When they finish their picture project, have students save their work and submit it through the classroom LMS. Specific exporting and sharing options will vary depending on the app or platform you selected.
TECH TIPS
Many project-design apps let users insert Internet-based images using their URLs. This makes Creative Commons image search (https://search.creativecommons.org) a great source for locating copyright-free pictures to use in this lesson. Students simply select Google Images as the search option, enter a search, and select a picture in their search results. After they select a picture, they click the View Image button and copy the resulting URL from the web browser’s address bar into the app.
Images with greater pixel dimensions, or higher resolutions, usually are better quality. A 1600- × 800-pixel image generally is much higher quality than one with a lower resolution, like 200 × 100 pixels. Google Images shows an image’s resolution when the user selects the image, as do most design apps via an Image Properties or similar link.
Connections
You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.
• English language arts: After reading a story, have students choose a favorite quote from its protagonist and then use an image-creation app to create a visually pleasing version of it. Students should choose a quote that focuses on character development and change.
• Mathematics: Ask students to use a presentation app to create a slideshow that explains tessellation or another mathematics concept. Their presentation should include tessellation pictures to demonstrate their learning. Presentation apps like PowerPoint (https://products.office.com/en-us/powerpoint), Keynote (www.apple.com/keynote), and Google Slides (www.google.com/slides/about) provide excellent image-creation tools for this project.
• Social science: Have students create a newspaper article about a famous person in history, inserting appropriate images to supplement the text.
• Science: Instruct students to create an evolutionary timeline of species using related images and text.
• Art: Have students use a design platform like Canva or Tackk to create a poster about an artist or art period, inserting their own images with descriptions.
Learning goal:
I can create interactive images that incorporate web links, text, and videos.
Operational: Annotating and Adding Links to Images
In order to create a coherent multimedia project, students must be able to think critically about the various pieces that they will include in the final product. This higher-order thinking process helps them create a unique message that they use to share their ideas with others. Students can use web and mobile apps several ways to connect different media pieces in a final product they can share with both peers and a wider audience.
You can use plenty of apps for this lesson, including Skitch (https://evernote.com/products/skitch) and Google Slides (www.google.com/slides/about). We recommend ThingLink (www.thinglink.com), a website where users can import images and tag them with links to webpages, text, and videos that others can view by clicking on those annotations. To use ThingLink, students must create an account with a school Gmail address or another school email address.
Process: Adding Links and Annotations to an Image
Use the following seven steps to teach students how to add links and annotations to an image.
1. Have students select an annotation app and start a new project.
2. Instruct students to choose an image from their device, from a website or a search, or from their social media account—such as Facebook (www.facebook.com) or Flickr (www.flickr.com)—and import it to their project.
3. Have students select an area of the image where they want to add a link to a webpage, a video, or text.
4. When a pop-up window or similar element appears with a data field, students should enter a web address, paste a video link, or type plain text into it.
5. Have students save the new annotation as part of the image. Most annotation tools place a special icon where students place the annotation.
6. Tell students to continue to tag as many spots on their image as they want, connecting the annotations to interesting websites, videos, and text.
7. When they finish, have students save and export or share their work using the app’s available options, directing students to the classroom LMS whenever possible.
Connections
You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.
TECH TIPS
ThingLink lets users change the shape and color of its default link icon, which is a circle.
Presentation software like Microsoft PowerPoint (https://products.office.com/en-us/powerpoint) also allows users to add links and annotations to images. However, activating linked elements with this software is sometimes tricky. In PowerPoint, for example, you must be in Presenter mode to click on a link and open it.
• English language arts: Using the cover image of a novel they read or an image that represents that novel as the base layer, have students explain the novel’s plot, from background to resolution, using annotations and links in an annotation app. For example, they can link within the project to the book’s movie trailer or an author interview.
• Mathematics: Ask students to import a chart or graph built on multiple data sets into an annotation app. They then assess the similarities and differences in the data sets using annotations and links to outside resources. For example, students might compare equivalent statistics between two different sports teams.
• Social science: Have students upload an iconic image from history to an annotation app and then analyze the image by adding annotations for background information and deeper analysis in the forms of videos, websites, and student-written text.
• Science: Using a world or country map as a base image, have students use an annotation app to insert annotations that link to resources that explain how human actions at various mapped locations affect certain ecosystems.
Learning goal:
I can use video tools and a green screen to mix background and foreground images.
Wow: Going Places With a Green Screen
Green-screen technology allows students to use images or video to virtually transport themselves to various locations, both fictional and real, by mashing up different foreground and background sources. Movies, TV shows, and commercials commonly use this technology. Many video apps can swap out a bright green background for a student’s choice of image or video (see figure 1.1). Green-screen productions allow students to show their learning in a unique and creative way, practice their speaking and listening skills, and immerse themselves in the content.
Figure 1.1: Students creating a green-screen video.
TECH TIPS
Remind students not to wear green when they record themselves. Green-screen apps cannot differentiate a person wearing green, or other green objects in the foreground, from the physical green screen and will swap them out with the background source.
If possible, have students mount their recording device on a stand or tripod to stabilize their recording.
Do Ink’s Green Screen app does not make copies of images and videos that students import from their photo app or photo album. If they delete an image or video from their device, it will also disappear from their Do Ink video. However, after students export their finished projects, any content in that exported project is safe.
For this lesson, you need a large green background. You do not have to purchase a fancy green-screen kit to experiment with green screens, although many are available. A bright green piece of fabric or poster-sized piece of paper attached to a wall will work fine. You can use multiple apps for this lesson, including WeVideo (www.wevideo.com) and iMovie (www.apple.com/imovie), but we recommend the Green Screen app from Do Ink (www.doink.com). This iOS app is easy to use and allows users to choose between numerous pictures and videos to insert into a video project’s background.
Process: Creating a Green-Screen Video
Use the following seven steps to have students create their own green-screen video.
1. Before choosing a green-screen app to use, students should find or capture images or video they want to appear in their project’s background and save them to the device they use to record their green-screen video.
2. Have students open their green-screen app and create a new project. (If the app asks students to allow it access to the device’s microphone and camera, they should select OK.) Most apps, like Do Ink’s Green Screen, have a divided timeline that features multiple layers that include at least a separate background source and a separate foreground source.
3. Instruct students to choose a source image or video for their background layer and add it to the timeline. This source will appear in place of the green screen in the final video.
4. Tell students to use the available app controls to ensure the background image properly replaces the green screen. This includes cropping or editing their source content and adjusting a chroma filter to filter out the correct shade of green that your screen uses. Refer to the app’s website or manual for specific information on using and adjusting chroma filters.
5. Have students record or add video they want to use in the foreground layer. This usually features a student or student group presenting information they researched that pairs with the background image or video they selected.
6. Ask students to save and export their project to the classroom LMS.
7. Once projects are in the LMS, you can help students share their work with a wider audience by posting links on your classroom social media account.
Connections
You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.
• English language arts: Before reading The Outsiders (Hinton, 1967), ask students to present information they found while conducting research on the 1960s. They should use corresponding images or videos as background sources while discussing their findings in the foreground source.
• Mathematics: Have students act as tour guides by recording themselves in the foreground taking viewers on a tour of 3-D shapes that appear in the background.
• Social science: Have students record a play or skit from a certain event or time in history, using corresponding historical images as their background.
• Science: Ask students to examine an organism by using a picture of it as their background. In the foreground, they should describe its features and give information about the organism.
• Music: Instruct students to make commercials about their instrument or a musical concept (such as the importance of changing reeds, how to hold a clarinet, or what the vibrato technique involves). They should use their green-screen app to transport themselves to a background setting appropriate for their commercial.
Using Video to Roll Out the Red Carpet
Students can use moviemaking tools to demonstrate their learning across all content areas. In this series of NOW lessons, students learn how to create videos and augmented-reality projects to incorporate into their presentations. Because they are generally comfortable using video technology to learn and teach others, grades 6–8 students should be able to effectively use multimedia to communicate their knowledge.
Learning goal:
I can create a simple movie using digital images and video clips.
Novice: Creating Simple Movies
Moviemaking gives students a creative way to show their learning, providing them with a collaborative process that requires them to use their language skills to show what they know and establish their voice. For example, students can use a moviemaking app and real-time weather data to report on weather conditions in a way that reflects their understanding of weather patterns. Students can include images of their own work, video clips, sounds, music, and other media, and they also have the option to narrate their movie. You should expect grades 6–8 students to be able to independently create a movie that demonstrates classroom learning using age-appropriate images, text, and music.
Students can use several video-creation apps, including iMovie (www.apple.com/imovie), Animoto (https://animoto.com), and Adobe Spark (https://spark.adobe.com), to make movies. For this lesson, we recommend WeVideo (www.wevideo.com), a website and app that allows users to create movies with pictures, video clips, text, and voice recordings. The free version limits students to two minutes of video, but you also have options for paid classroom and school subscriptions. To use WeVideo, students need to sign up for a WeVideo account using a school G Suite email address or another school email address.
Process: Recording a Simple Video
Use the following six steps to have students record and share a simple video project.
TECH TIPS
The Support section of the WeVideo website (www.wevideo.com/support) offers a Getting Started Video series that you can use to get yourself and your students up to speed with how to use the website.
Saved video files can get very large and can take up valuable space on students’ devices. You can avoid this problem by having students save their videos to a cloud-based storage platform, such as Google Drive (www.google.com/drive), Microsoft OneDrive (https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-us), or Dropbox (www.dropbox.com).
1. Have students select a moviemaking app for their project. If instead you choose one app for the entire class to use, make sure you introduce students to its user interface and basic features and functions.
2. Prompt students to start a new video project. Some moviemaking apps will ask students questions about their project before they begin making their movie. For example, an app might ask students to choose a template, title, or description.
3. Students record their video or find images to insert into their project to create a video.
4. Students should insert elements they want to use into their project. This can include importing images, previously recorded video, and audio, like narration or background music. Students use the app to drag elements into the project and arrange them in the project timeline tracks to form a complete movie.
5. Have students save and export or share their work. Most video-creation apps allow you to directly export projects to popular video-hosting services like YouTube (www.youtube.com), WeVideo (www.wevideo.com), and Vimeo (https://vimeo.com). Students can also share their videos to their class’s LMS for peer viewing.
6. Have students share a link to their published video with you and the rest of the class.
Connections
You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.
• English language arts: Ask students to make a video where they act as a book critic reviewing specific aspects of a text they read. Elements of this project can include a video of themselves speaking as the critic, audio narration, and author interviews.
• Mathematics: Have students make a commercial or ad-pitch video to sell an invented product. This project should include financial content, such as the cost to produce, sales cost, and profit.
• Social science: Instruct students to make a video of themselves acting out or recreating an event in history. For example, a student might use a green-screen app to film him- or herself talking about modern immigration issues in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
• Health: Have students make a video with them acting as nutrition specialists working with clients to explain proper nutrition to them.
Learning goal:
I can use advanced multimedia-editing features to create a final movie product.
Operational: Creating Movie Masterpieces
When students understand how to put simple movie features together, they can work to edit their movie and add special features to enhance it. This exploration process works especially well if you put students in groups so they can collaborate. Grades 6–8 students should be able to independently plan, organize, and produce a complete multimedia production. These are valuable skills for students in practicing their communication abilities and sharing their voice with others.
Each moviemaking app has different features for students to explore, and any of the moviemaking apps we suggested for the novice lesson should work equally well for this lesson.
Process: Recording and Editing a Movie
Use the following five steps to have students assemble and edit a movie project.
TEACHING TIP
Students should only add visual effects with a specific purpose in mind. Too many unnecessary effects can take away from a movie’s message.
1. Have students select a moviemaking app for their project.
2. Tell students to take photos and record video or audio that they want to include in their movie. Students can either use their default device camera app or a downloaded moviemaking app to record.
3. Have students open the moviemaking app they selected and import the video clips, audio clips, and photos they want to use.
TECH TIP
As students create and edit their movie project, instruct them to add audio to their timeline last, after they finish adding and editing video or image content. Making visual changes after they put the audio in place may throw off the necessary alignment between audio and video elements.
4. Have students edit their movie by sequencing their imported content in a meaningful way. This can include trimming unwanted material from clips and adding text, special effects, and transitions between video elements.
5. Tell students to preview their final product. If they feel happy with it, they can save and export it or share it with the class. After students share their work to a classroom LMS or social media account, you can use this final project as a summative assessment to gauge student learning.
Connections
You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.
• English language arts: After reading The Diary of a Young Girl (Frank, 2012) and Number the Stars (Lowry, 1989), have students compare and contrast the historical and fictional portrayal of time, place, and characters. They should create a movie demonstrating the similarities and differences between historical and fictional content. For example, students might include transitions, title pages, and music in their final project.
• Mathematics: Have students learn about statistical sampling by writing a survey question and choosing classmates to answer it. Students should select a moviemaking app to detail and present an interpretation of the results, explaining why their sample is representative of the entire school population.
• Social science: Ask students to make an eyewitness news report about an event in recent history, using information gained from interviewing someone who lived through the event (such as a war, 9/11, or a natural disaster). We find TouchCast (www.touchcast.com) very useful for this kind of project. Students should incorporate videos, images, text, and voiceovers to explain the event.
• Science: Instruct sudents to create a stop-motion video of Earth’s 4.6-billion-year history, citing evidence from rock strata. Students should put the stop-motion pictures together using a moviemaking app and include a voiceover in the movie to explain their learning.
• Health: Have students study the negative effects of drug and tobacco use and make a public service announcement (PSA) using a moviemaking app they select. Students should include images of the health consequences, in addition to text and voiceovers.
Learning goal:
I can use and create augmented-reality projects.
Wow: Creating an Augmented Reality
The goal of this lesson is for students to learn about augmented reality and create projects that use augmented reality to demonstrate learning. Augmented reality occurs when a creator layers computer-generated images onto a real environment. It is different from virtual reality, which is when students are immersed in a fully artificial experience. Not only do augmented-reality projects give students a fun and engaging way to see their work come to life, these projects require students to look at content from a different perspective when determining how to use the technology to showcase learning.
For this lesson, we recommend Aurasma (www.aurasma.com), an augmented-reality app that allows users to turn images or everyday objects into interactive experiences. Through this app, images and objects act as triggers to reveal embedded content (similar to QR codes). Aurasma is available as a free iOS and Android app and requires students to create an account via its website. You can also explore and use apps like Google Tango (http://get.google.com/tango), Daqri apps (https://daqri.com), and Pokémon Go (www.pokemongo.com).
Process: Creating an Augmented-Reality Project
Use the following four steps to have students create an augmented-reality project.
TECH TIP
In addition to using augmented-reality apps in your classroom, consider using virtual-reality apps, such as Google Expeditions (https://edu.google.com/expeditions), that allow students to better see different people and places from their local communities. Starting students out with these tools allows them to gain a better understanding of how these technologies work before creating it themselves.
1. Have students select an augmented-reality app and start a new project. (In Aurasma, new projects are called Auras.)
2. Ask students to take a photo or upload a photo to use as their trigger image. The trigger image is the icon that causes the augmented-reality content to appear. The icon could be a picture, a photograph, a landmark, and so on.
3. Students should select an overlay or create their own. The overlay is what appears when the someone scans the trigger image. For example, when a user scans a picture of a human heart with an augmented-reality app, a 3-D model of a heart could appear.
4. Have students save and share their work. Teachers or students can then print the trigger image or share links to their creations on the classroom LMS.
Connections
You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.
• Social science: Have students find a picture that represents the various programs related to President Roosevelt’s New Deal and use it as a trigger image. They should then input information into the overlay about a specific New Deal program. Their classmates then scan their peers’ triggers to learn more about each part of the New Deal.
• Science: Have students view chemical interactions using Daqri’s Elements 4D (http://elements4d.daqri.com) to watch various elements as they interact. They should scan printed-out cubes to see what an element looks like in real life. They can then scan cubes together to see the elements form molecules.
• Health: Have students use Daqri’s Anatomy 4D app (http://anatomy4d.daqri.com) to take a trip through the human heart. They should scan the trigger image of a heart, and then view a model that includes veins, arteries, and chambers.
Engaging the Ear Using Audio
In this NOW lesson series, students will learn how to use, create, and publish audio recordings. They can use these recordings in any content area as evidence of what they learn. At this age, students should be able to use audio tools to clearly and concisely vocalize their message to convey a cohesive idea (see figure 1.2). Their speaking should be fluent and show appropriate prosody. Practicing, recording, and rerecording audio will strengthen their reading and speaking skills.
Figure 1.2: A student adds audio to a presentation.
Learning goal:
I can add audio to a visual presentation.
Novice: Creating a Presentation With Audio
This lesson’s goal is for students to learn how to create an audio soundtrack. Audio tracks can make a project more interesting, and creating an audio soundtrack can help teach students skills for integrating various types of media and mashing the media pieces together into projects. Not only does audio give students a great way to practice reading fluency, it also allows students to record their feedback on their peers’ projects and gives them the possibility to broadcast their recording to a larger audience.
Loads of apps allow students to record their voices. Several LMS platforms, like Seesaw (http://web.seesaw.me) and Showbie (www.showbie.com), support audio recording for student collaboration, as do apps like Soundtrap (www.soundtrap.com) and QuickVoice (www.nfinityinc.com/quickvoiceip.html). For this lesson, we suggest VoiceThread (https://voicethread.com), a website that allows students to create visual presentations while using voice for collaboration and communication. Students can use this tool to add recorded audio to their presentations or record commentary for feedback on their peers’ projects.
Process: Recording an Audiovisual Presentation
Use the following four steps to record a simple audiovisual presentation.
TECH TIPS
VoiceThread allows students to add an additional visual flourish to audiovisual presentations by drawing directly on their slides.
Students can use many free music sources to add music to their presentations. SoundCloud and ccMixter, for example, have free music collections that students can access by searching the Creative Commons website (https://search.creativecommons.org).
1. Tell students to select an app, or apps, for their presentation. Apps like VoiceThread allow students to create visual presentations and audio side by side. Students can also use a presentation app like PowerPoint or Google Slides for their visuals and a separate app to record audio that they can then save and insert into the presentation.
2. Have students create their project visuals, adding in pictures, video, or other visual content they want to use.
3. When other edits are complete, instruct students to insert or record audio that goes along with their presentation. For this project, the audio source could be recorded narration, a sound-effect track, or a music track.
4. When they finish, have students save and export or share their project for the class to see and listen to.
Connections
You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.
• English language arts: Ask students to analyze the word choices that an author makes in a story and use an audiovisual project to highlight and narrate how those choices affect the story’s connotation.
• Social science: Have students create an audiovisual presentation about the history of immigration in the United States. They should record narration that explains the pictures or videos they select. Or they can use text in their presentation and, for the audio, include songs that represent the immigrant culture they study.
• Science: Instruct students to record an interview with an adult about how to go green.
• Foreign language: Ask students to record themselves reading a passage or essay in the language they study so that the teacher can assess pronunciation.
• Music: Have students include audio in an audiovisual presentation about their favorite musical artist or a musical period they study.
Learning goal:
I can add depth to my learning presentations by creating my own audio clips that incorporate music, narration, and sound effects.
Operational: Mixing Audio Like a DJ
Adding multiple audio tracks to a single project allows students to produce more complex work that enhances its quality and professionalism for a wider audience. From fictional narratives to informative podcasts, students who mash up multiple audio sources find themselves making critical decisions about the content they create that communicates their learning in more powerful and dynamic ways.
For this lesson, we recommend UJAM (www.ujam.com), an online audio mixer that allows you to record your voice and combine it with various styles of music to create unique songs. To use UJAM, students need to create an account with a school G Suite email address or another school email address. The free version limits audio recordings to three minutes. Other app options include GarageBand (www.apple.com/mac/garageband) and Smule’s AutoRap (www.smule.com/apps).
Process: Recording a Mixed-Audio Product
Use the following five steps to have students create a mixed-audio product using multiple audio elements.
TEACHING TIP
Students should practice saying what they plan to record out loud numerous times before recording. This minimizes headaches and gives them a great way to practice fluency.
1. Have students select an audio-mixing app and create a new project.
2. Tell students to record an initial audio element for their project. This can include recording music lyrics, recording narrative content, or even recording their own music. Most recording apps include settings students can use to configure the app for the style of audio they intend to record.
TECH TIPS
If the app students use requests access to their device’s camera or microphone, they should allow it.
To protect their work from getting lost, students should always export audio files to a cloud-based storage platform, like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or Dropbox.
3. Tell students to use the app to add additional audio elements to their recording, such as background music for lyrics or narration. Apps like UJAM and GarageBand often provide multiple copyright-free styles of music or rhythmic beats to accompany recordings, ranging in style from acoustic rock to hip-hop.
4. Have students review their finished project and edit or tweak it to their liking. If they don’t like their product, they can always rerecord audio or try a different style of backing music.
5. When satisfied with their work, students should save and export it or share their project to the classroom LMS or social media account.
Connections
You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.
• English language arts: Ask students to record themselves reading a previously written essay or story using an audio-mixing app and then add complementary music and sound effects.
• Mathematics: Have students use an audio-mixing app to record themselves explaining the steps required to solve an equation and share the recording with the class. For example, they could write lyrics for a song about angles and add matching background music.
• Social science: Have students create a song that uses vocabulary from a social science unit as the lyrics and record themselves singing it with an audio-mixing app.
• Science: Instruct students to record a radio advertisement for a solution to an environmental problem, such as our overuse of fossil fuels, by adding songs and sound effects to their narration.
Learning goal:
I can create and publish a podcast.
Wow: Creating and Publishing a Podcast
For students who have mastered recording and mashing up multiple audio sources, podcasts give them a wonderful way to create products that take full advantage of their learning and allow them to publish their knowledge for a wider audience. Think of a podcast as your own radio show that people don’t necessarily listen to live. It’s really just an audio file or clip students publish for others to download and listen to or stream. A traditional podcast has a mix of spoken audio and music or sound effects. Podcasts allow students to share their voices with a wider audience and practice their speaking skills.
Podcasting, unfortunately, is typically not a free enterprise, but many podcasting platforms do allow users to try out podcasting for free. Most podcasting platforms also allow students to create links to their content that they can post to an LMS or class social media account. For this lesson, we suggest exposing students to multiple podcast platforms and letting them choose the one that works best for them. We recommend three: Podbean (www.podbean.com), SoundCloud (https://soundcloud.com), and Spreaker (www.spreaker.com). Each of these platforms requires students to create an account using a school G Suite email address or another school email address. Be sure to check each website for age restrictions. If there are restrictions, instead try creating a class account page that you manage.
Process: Creating a Podcast
Use the following seven steps to have student groups record a podcast.
TECH TIPS
Listenwise (https://listenwise.com) offers some great podcasts for your students to listen to that provide them with examples that may inspire their own work.
Students who want to spread access to their podcast to a wider audience should consider signing their show up with podcast distributors (not hosting sites), like iTunes (www.apple.com/itunes). These sites make it easier for listeners to find and subscribe to podcasts.
1. Let student groups choose a platform for their podcast from the options you provide.
2. A lot of planning goes into podcasts, so make sure student groups have a solid outline or script before they begin recording. Student groups should also practice their show before they record it.
3. Have students locate and acquire background music that they can use for free. They can use background music to go along with their discussion or use it as intro or outro music or for segues between topics.
4. Tell students to record an episode. Depending on the platform they selected, they either use the platform’s tools to record it or use a separate audio app. Spreaker, for example, provides both recording and publishing tools. On the other hand, SoundCloud requires users to upload audio they’ve already recorded.
5. During the recording, students will no doubt make mistakes that force them to restate their dialogue, go off on tangents, or end up in general mayhem. When they finish recording, have students review and edit their content to remove and smooth over any mistakes, add background music, and trim any excess audio at the beginning or end of the show.
6. Using the podcasting platform’s tools, have students select or upload their audio recording and add a title and description for their episode.
7. Have students publish their podcast and share a link to the classroom LMS or social media account.
Connections
You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.
• English language arts: Ask students to create and publish a discussion podcast in which they discuss with one another the themes of the books they read.
• Mathematics: Have students create and publish a podcast that explains how they solve a real-world geometry problem (for example, solving for surface area). They should share their podcasts with one another and look at the different ways in which their peers went about solving the problem.
