the big house library

yup, that's right, casa's freshmen were podcasting during their first week back in school after summer break! :) pretty high tech, huh? :)

well, their computer literacy teacher, mrs. donna reed, wanted them to have a tour of the big house library. :) i thought they should do something techy while they were there. so we pulled out the digital audio recorders and watched them have fun recording their reactions for posterity.

in almost no time at all, mrs. reed and i brainstormed the questions and developed the rubric. it's hard to believe how fast and easy it was to pull off a lesson like this. i hope more casa teachers will try it. :)

curious to know what the students had to say?

you can listen to all of their podcasts at:
http://casacomplit1011.pbworks.com/project-1-library-tour-podcast

bighouselibrary.mypodcast.com
 

p.s. thanks to flickr user colleen af venable for her awesome creative commons art! :)
 

Recording Your Podcast...

First, record your podcast with one of the library's digital audio recorders. You can check them out from Ms. Koval or Miss Helen. 

Please be careful with these, though, because if "you break 'em, you buy 'em!" 

If you can't figure out which buttons to press when, please review the user manual. 

Recording Your Podcast with Gcast...

Another way to record your podcast is with Gcast. Gcast is a website that allows you to record voice messages, mix in music, upload, and share audio files right from your cell phone! For free! For real!

The sound quality isn't pristine, but it's definitely passable. If you want to try Gcasting, this page will tell you all you need to know. And if you want to hear an example, take a listen to my first Gcasts with Ms. Gardner's class.
  

 
Editing Your Podcast with Audacity...

If you need to do any trimming of your recording, you can use a program called Audacity. The download is safe and best of all free.

If you want to be able to convert files to MP3s, you'll need to also download and install their encoder.  

Unfortunately, I don't think you can use Audacity to edit Gcasts, and to be honest, I don't know if you can edit Gcasts at all without deleting and re-recording them, but I'm not sure about that. If you figured this out already, please add a comment to this blog post and let us know how.

Uploading Your Podcast to a Weebly Blog...

Click new post to create a new post. In the dashboard above, click and drag elements you want to add to your blog post: like paragraphs under basic and photos under multimedia. 

To upload your audio file, under multimedia, click and drag the file icon, then upload your WMA or MP3 file from your computer, recorder, drive, or device. (See for example the podcast below by Ms. Gardner.)  

To edit or delete your post, click edit under the comments link in the post. But if you're sharing a blog with classmates or colleagues, please don't edit or delete someone else's post because that's not nice.
 

ms_gardner_gets_all_giddy_about_podcasting.wma
File Size:	209 kb
File Type:	wma

Download File

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Uploading Your Podcast to Blogger...

Because Blogger doesn't yet allow you to upload audio files (like MP3s or WMAs) by themselves with out embedding a player, you're going to need a work around to upload your podcasts to Blogger. 

You can use Windows Movie Maker to make a video file of your audiocast, which you can easily upload to Blogger, no questions asked. This helpful blogpost will tell you how-to. 
 
For tips on how to edit Blogger blog posts, check out this screencast I made with a Casa student named Ryan. We walk and talk you through all the steps.
 
Well, that's about it! Got questions? Email me or IM me. Good luck and happy blog-casting! =)
 

a_musical_collaboration.mp3
File Size:	3805 kb
File Type:	mp3

Download File

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what_music_can_teach_teachers.mp3
File Size:	1869 kb
File Type:	mp3

Download File

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On January 29th, 2009, Casa faculty gathered in the new multi-use room for an unusual but beauitiful introduction to their professional development day: a quintet of Casa students demonstrating musical collaboration and Assistant Principal Eric Backman explaining the symbolism of it. We hope you enjoy our first Casa podcast. :)

So, we're gonna start podcasting here at Casa Grande! And, we're ready to get started small-scale. We've got an Olympus WS-311M digital voice recorder and WMA music player along with a tie-clipping, noise-cancelling microphone. Way cool beans! =) Snaps for Ms. Susan Thompson, the librarian before me, who bought it last year. =) This little baby is cataloged and barcoded so now you or your teachers can check it out from the library! =)

But, while 1 is nice, 1 is not enough! Not when we've got 100+ teachers, 2000+ students, and tons of way-cool curriculum to record! =) So, we're asking for more. 10 more! 10 more Olympus WS-321M digital voice recorders. =) You can see how awesome this thing is in 360º with the super-cool click-and-drag feature! =)

Our wishlist is online at Amazon.com. =) Your donation of 1 or more digital voice recorders will help us bring this amazing technology into more classrooms. And, because our school is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, your gift to our library is full-tax-deductible! =) That's what we call win/win! =)