Category: audacity

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DSCN1256, originally uploaded by lisibo.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I’m currently in Spain, in Madrid at a bilateral eTwinning meeting for Spanish and English teachers looking for partners – for eTwinning projects.

The meeting is coming to an end today after three days of frantic activity as teachers from both countries really threw themselves into the task of making friends and influencing one another. After a treasure hunt around the sites of central Madrid, numerous three course meals and several copas de vino, everyone has found a partner or partners, and begun to formulate project ideas. So it’s been a very successful meeting – and some of the project ideas that people are sharing as I type are really interesting and creative!

One partnership are going to use digital storytelling and video to share talents between their schools with pupils acting as a Simon Cowell and judging the talents of their partner pupils.

Another group are planning on looking at festivals and cultural events along the lines of ‘similar but different’ – I know that this type of project leads pupils to not only learn about their partners’ culture but also to reflect on their own!

‘One liners’ will be based around a ‘guessing game’ involving proverbs in Spanish and English, with the partners schools exchanging one line each week that will be displayed for the pupils who will work out / guess what it means. The partners hope that this will lead to discussion of the imagery of proverbs and a comparison of similarities and differences. Apparently this idea was formulated yesterday in the middle of the session I delivered on Voki Voicethread and Audacity in eTwinning after I shared the Voicethread highlighted in the previous post called What could it mean? :o)

Another group were inspired to create a NING network in my session (and I only mentioned those in passing!) and are planning on a monthly Voicethread activity about the City of the Future – environment, culture, lifestyle etc.

I’ve had some very interesting conversations over these few days about languages and technology, and also about the use of technology in general. One delegate told me on the first night that he hated technology, couldn’t do anything technological and that his own children were banned from using computers as they are ‘evil’. Mmm! I suggested that he might like to learn how ICT works alongside his children, thus knowing what they were doing and learning at the same time, and we had a discussion about educating rather than banning but didn’t seem overly swayed by my argument! So I took that as a challenge for my session and was pleased as punch when he made a Voki in my session and declared that perhaps he could do something after all. And in the report back, he’s just suggested using online Playstation competitions as a way of maintaining and establishing links between the schools. :O)

Here’s my presentation below – and the notes I made too.
You can’t put Keynote presentations in Slideshare or Pages documents in DocStoc so the formatting is a little odd as I had to export it as .ppt and .doc :O(

Notes for Madrid – Get more Business Documents

I attended a really interesting session on Digital voice recorders delivered by Kath Holton from Argoed High School.

She began by talking about her criteria for a good digital voice recorder –

• high quality – recording and manufacture
• ease of uploading eg via USB
• good internal microphone
• the type of file it records eg mp3 is best as can be downloaded onto pupils’ iPods and mp3 players
• ease of access for staff and pupils
• robust

She suggested a number of suitable DVRs and referred us to Joe’s blog to see his ideas on the subject!

She then shared how she used digital voice recorders in her MFL classes in several ways.

Firstly, she used it for pupils to practice for GCSE. Pupils could record their response to questions / their presentations for their teachers to hear and assess when convenient, and also to provide a record that could be listened to not only by the pupil, but also by others – if the pupil has given permission. In addition, teachers recorded revision material in this way. The pupil response to this was very positive as it gave them the possibility to listen/revise wherever was convenient – on their phone, iPod, or stereo etc.

A second use was to record evidence of KS3 conversations and speaking activiites. Each of the three teachers at the school have three DVRs. Pupils are given the recorder and allowed to go out inot the corridor to record their pairwork. At the end of the lesson, the teacher downloads these onto her memory stick and can listen to, assess the audio files before keeping them as evidence. Kath advised that it’s important to remind pupils to state their name at the start of the recordings to save time trying to work out who is talking.

These files can also be used as starters in the next lesson with an AfL focus – pupils discussing stars and wishes on the class focus of, say, pronunciation. And the same files can also be used by staff for moderation purposes , allowing discussion of levelling etc.

Kath then went on to talk about the storage of files in a Wetpaint wiki, thus enabling pupils and staff to upload to a single space. she had previously tried a blog but felt that the wiki was better as it allows more freedom.

The focus then moved to the use of Voki with her pupils. She has made an account but her pupils do not have one – she encourages them to respond to her Voki using the comment button and text to speech. I found this really interesting as I had not discovered this feature (you think you know all about a tool…) You can leave a comment by clicking on the comment button and choosing to use an existing Voki or make your own. Kath encourages the pupils to do this in their time, as the making of the Voki can take time!! But she has found this to be a very successful activity with pupils ‘showing off’ in a way that they may feel uncomfortable doing in class. Kath has even had Voki from parents who have wanted to join in!

Kath finished off by mentioning Quizlet – www.quizlet.com a free tool that she uses to practice vocabulary, and then sharing an anecdote about giving pupils ownership of their work – by using their sound effects as a ‘highlighter’ of key concepts in presentations, they feel that the task is personal to them.

The great news is that Joe has interviewed Kath and you too can hear what Kath has to say about DVR as well as many other things by listening to the audio and reading the notes here.
You can also catch Kath on the CILT Cymru DVD in the ICT section.

Really interesting stuff. I’ve used Audacity so far to record pupils – problematic as there is a lot of classroom noise and I really don’t like them lugging the laptops out in to the corridor. But a DVR would be a different story… wonder if ICT has spent its budget yet?? ;o)

Not the bumper crop we had hoped to post but we did manage to finish three despite crashing laptops, intermittent Internet connection and microphones that wouldn’t work!

AC_Voki_Embed(200,267,”80d16db8fd5bdeec3b1b64a33263cbe4″,927156, 1, “”, 0);
Get a Voki now!

AC_Voki_Embed(200,267,”c07ccd4ea46c28bd386b6a3e9becb6fe”,927037, 1, “”, 0);
Get a Voki now!

AC_Voki_Embed(200,267,”c56e4e9b4c20cc98a60aa8987728e07c”,927047, 1, “”, 0);
Get a Voki now!

I’m just showing 6VH how to get around our little problem with Voki not recording directly by using Audacity. So brace yourself for lots of Voki coming at you this afternoon ;o)

Thanks to Zara in 5SD for letting me use her sound file to demonstrate!

AC_Voki_Embed(300,400,”b8bd88160d0bccd5edb01550390399fb”,926822, 1, “”, 0);
Get a Voki now!

On Monday, Comenius West Midlands held its Primary Languages Conference at the Novotel in Wolverhampton. Sandwiched between keynotes by Joe Brown from CILT that involved song rhyme and lots of action, and Steven Fawkes from ALL who thrilled us with his ‘Banane‘, delegates had to choose sessions from a range including :

• It’s magic!
• International Perspective
• Let’s play – Language games and activities for the playground.
• Numeracy through Languages
• Animation
• Italian for the Primary classroom – a cross curricular approach.
• Music and songs in the Primary classroom
• Animation in the languages classroom (double session)
• Creative use of ICT

A tricky choice for many, judging from the feedback at the end of the day! I for one will be emailing presenters for notes from their sessions as I was presenting and missed out on all of the sessions!

Actually, I didn’t completely miss out as I was able to attend the plenaries and also began the day by acting as ‘roadie’ for Oscar Stringer as he presented a whistle stop double session on animation from idea through planning, modelling, filming, adding finishing touches and publishing. Phew! In a very short time (less that two hours), the participants made short films in French and Spanish which can be viewed below and on his NING network. Just shows what you can do in a short time with good instruction, imagination and a bit of plasticine. ;o)

Find more videos like this on Animation For Education

Definitely inspired me! So much so that, after a quick chat with Oscar, I decided to have a go with my Year 4 class this week. More of that in a later post!

My session was entitled Creative use of ICT and centred on the use of some tools that i thnk are useful to enhance and enable PLL.

The idea had been to introduce delegates to Voki, Voicethread, Audacity and Photostory, explain how I’ve used them in my classroom, and then let delegates have a go at using one of the tools. I’d prepared notes for people that went into everyone’s pack so those who couldn’t attend were able to benefit too, and these pointed to online tutorials for the tools as well as examples from my experience and research. I’d also requested a laptop between two to be provided with a microphone and Internet access, and Audacity and Photostory3 uploaded ready. I’d prepared a Voicethread and Voki account for the day so all outcomes could be saved together for future reference, and I’d also added some examples to get people started.

Best laid plans and all! There were three laptops provided, the speakers didn’t work, and Internet access was at best infuriatingly slow and at worst non-existent (at 20€ per laptop, I hope the orgnisers got a refund!) Anyhow, it left me rather embarrassed as my examples took an age to load (Voki) or didn’t play sound (Voicethread AND Voki at times) – next tie I’ll save them for offline access using Camtasia or similar – and I’ve found that there is a facility on Voicethread now to save for offline access.

However, I did manage to highlight the use of del.icio.us which i hadn’t intended to mention but proved to be one of the most popular ideas with delegates. My account of how I use Audacity led to lots of smiles and there was a general hum of interest as I made a Photostory in three minutes.

I must say was a little disheartened by the first session, especially as I had to repeat it after lunch, but several people came up to me and seemed to be buzzing about something I’d shared, so I went into the repeat feeling a little more confident, especially as I was prepared for the problems this time! The make up of the group was different this time and they asked lots of questions – I think they were the G&T group ;o)

At the end of the afternoon when the evaluations were returned, I was rather surprised, and very pleased as well!- to read several who said things like

If you want to have the notes, see below. and all the sites / references can be found on my del.icio.us account – http:del.icio.us/lisibo/june22

Creative uses of ICT in the PLL classroom – Get more College Essays