LESSON PLAN Opheilia Vanderpuye

Using podcasting in literacy with year 4 & 5

Subjects
ICT: Podcasting-digital literacy
Lesson Objective
Learning Objectives:
Part 1:
To record a vox pop related to Year 4’s visit to the Queen’s Park CLC’s Brent Nature Network project
To edit vox pop using Audacity
To add music clip or jingle to vox pop
Part 2:
To record a 2 episode podcast on two life cycles: butterfly and frog using Audacity
To edit and add musical introductions and endings to recording
To podcast final edit using Podium
Resources
Laptop, microphone, Audacity and Podium
Key Vocabulary
Vox pop, podcast, questions, edit, time shift, tracks, microphone, popping, distortion, import audio, copyright, export audio
Key questions to focus learning:
What pattern do the threads make?
Introduction
What is a ‘vox pop’? children to share their ideas
Remind children of vox pop examples they may have seen on TV
Explain the activity and what we aim to achieve by the end of the lesson
What is a podcast? Explain the difference between a podcast and a normal audio recording.
Remind children about the Brent Nature Network activities they did.
Talk about protocol when speaking into the microphone:
1.  Wait till you get to the microphone before starting to speak
2.  Speak slowly, clearly and loud enough to be heard through the microphone
3.  Don’t have the microphone too close to your mouth, so as to prevent distortion and popping (demonstrate this by doing a test recording)
4.  Try not move hand around microphone as this can create crackling
Main Activity
Part 1 OV to lead
Children from year 5 are already familiar with recording podcasts will act as trainers to the Year 4 children who will be podcasting and recording a vox pop for the first time.
Key question: How did you find the Brent Nature Network project, was there anything that really excited you?
Quick demo/View of the BNN in Fronter
Year 4 children to answer the above questions one by one. Once recording finished transfer onto network for editing in Audacity. ( Year 5 & 6 children to support the editing process)
Part 2: Eneas Mcnulty to lead-
Highlight the process as simple: RED: Record, Edit, Publish…we don’t have a podcast till we Publish…MP3 file is not a Podcast, a Podcast is the process of compiling a series of MP3s together and allowing people to subscribe to them as they become available.
Demonstrate how to edit recording in Audacity. Show basic tools and show import audio. Children to carry out editing.
·  How to import audio recording into Audacity
·  How to cut audio not needed
·  How to import Audio network files
·  How to use ‘time Shift Tool’ to move and position sound bites at beginning and end of recording
·  How to use ‘Fade out tool
·  How to save source files for rediting
·  How to export as MP3 ready for making the podcast.
Add music downloaded from Audio Network- to make vox pop more interesting. Remind children about copyright issues. Only use music that has no copyright issues
Save work as Audacity Project then
Save /(Export) as MP3 – make sure to give your MP3 a title e.g. Brent Nature Network Vox Pop, Author- your own name (first name only), genre: Other, date: 2010
Part 3: In Radio Shack – OV to lead
Yoyo & JJ: Record Life Cycle of Butterfly – choose music intro and ending
Chief Reporter Ems and DJ Han: Record Life Cycle of Frog – choose music intro and ending
Zenzen to operate recording levels and mixing
SAVE/EXPORT as MP3 and then import into Podium
Create 2 episodes: Episode 1 Life Cycle of Butterfly
Episode 2 Life Cycle of Frog
NOTE: Further Life Cycles will be recorded later as part of this podcast
Differentiation: By outcome
Extension potential: Record podcasts on various topics/subjects e.g Science, Maths problems, etc. etc. etc.
Plenary: Share children’s efforts and get peer feed back. Discuss issues with recording etc.
Other curriculum links (if appropriate):
Literacy, speaking and listening, science- Brent Nature Network (BNN)

Photographers & Film makers Ayesha, Reem, Oliva, Umi