The Vocaroo website worked perfectly for recording a podcast and having it immediately available for listening. The website was very easy to navigate, and I loved that the website provides a direct link after recording. I was also able to save the podcast to my computer as an MP3 file, which I found to be very convenient. The website also allows you to share via social media if you wish.
The podcast was one of the easiest projects I have worked on thus far for this instructional technology class; and I found the Vocaroo website to be very helpful. In my future classroom, I will easily record my lectures using Vocaroo during the class period, so students can access lectures at later dates. Vocaroo is also free, so the challenge of funding mentioned in Chapter 8 of Teaching and Learning with Technology is not an issue (Duffy & McDonald, 2015). Vocaroo is also helpful for classrooms utilizing flipped lectures, as students can view these lectures from home. Like the “Software for Active Learning” section of Teaching and Learning with Technology mentions, integrating software, like podcasts, into teaching allows students to master 21st century skills that are necessary for a technological society (Duffy & McDonald, 2015).
Link to Podcast:
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0hzRtiYwvq4
I found the movie story project to be the most challenging project yet. It was difficult for me to decide how to instruct in this manner at the beginning. I ultimately decided to do a story on the writing process. I decided to search for relevant images to include in my video, and I was disappointed in the end at the quality of the pictures in my video. After finding relevant images and placing them in a video on Windows Movie Maker, I recorded the audio of my voice presenting the lesson. It was difficult to figure out how to get the audio to coincide with the pictures in the right timing of the video, but I eventually figured it out. I then decided to include music. I searched on the free music website that Windows Movie Maker recommended. It took me a while to find a song which fit with the mood of my video, but I was ultimately happy with the music selection. Lastly, I decided my video needed a bit more personalization, so I recorded an intro and outro video of me introducing and concluding the video. I recorded the video on my computer’s included webcam, and the resolution of the video reflected this. I inserted transitions and captions into the video, so that it would flow smoothly.
If I were to do this project again, there are definitely things I would do differently now that I have familiarized myself with Windows Movie Maker. I am more informed about how to make the pictures, audio, video, and music coincide after experimenting. This project was very time-consuming, but I definitely learned a good bit about how to edit clips together. Windows Movie Maker is a cool tool after one figures out how to operate it, but I do believe it needs some work to become a little more user friendly. Uploading the video to YouTube was pretty easy; however, I had to make sure that the video was saved in MP4 format for this to work effectively. I plan to incorporate personalized movie stories into my future classes, and hopefully they will become more streamlined in the future, as I become a better video editor.
These types of videos are great to use in flipped classroom, as students can interact with the material in a variety of ways and access them from home. They also make it easy for teachers to present information and organize lectures in a creative way. Through using digital storytelling and other forms of technology, teachers, according to the “Software for Active Learning” chapter, can model necessary digital skills necessary to promote digital citizenship (Duffy & McDonald, 2015).
Text:
J.L. Duffy & J.B. McDonald. (2015). Software for teacher tasks. Teaching and Learning with Technology. 5th ed. 176-200.
Link to YouTube video:https://youtu.be/9p9KCzaYIDU