28th June - Wilmington Academy /

The Leigh Technology Academy: X-

Curricular day
Podcasting & Blogging with Science

Aims

• To encourage students to think of new creative ways to use ICT to demonstrate and
catalogue their learning.
• Students to see how the skills learnt from the day can be related to other subjects, to
their advantage.

Day Structure

Time Activity

8:45 - 9:00 Students arrive at the academy and assemble in the lecture theatre.

9:00 - 9:15 Welcome address to students where the aims of the day are set out,
students split into pre defined groups and lead to their learning areas.

9:15 - 9:30 Students leave the lecture theatre and assemble in their respective
learning areas and prepare for the first session.

9:30 - 12:00 Session 1 - Podcasting

Students creating content based around a chosen science topic.

12:00 - 12:30 Lunch

12:30 - 14:30 Session 2 - Blogging

Students publishing their content created in Session 1.

14:30 - 15:00 Feature of some of the work from the day, finish and close.

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Podcasting - Year 7
Science / ICT
2.5 hours (With 20min break)

Objectives
1. Become familiar with the enhanced podcasting format and its value in multiple scenarios
2. Learn how to use the necessary GarageBand and Keynote functions to create and produce an
enhanced podcast
3. Create and produce a podcast containing materials created around Year 7 Science

Materials
• Access to Apple computers with OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) for each member of the class

• Installed with iLife 09 and iWork 09

• Ability to record audio and save files
• Resource: ‘Crib’ sheet of how to create an enhanced podcast

Procedures
1. Students introduced to the concept of podcasting, what it is and how it is used giving some real
world examples of popular Podcasts on iTunes (Radio Lingua) (00:10)
2. “What is a Podcast?” Students to come up with a definition based on the examples they have
just seen. (00:05)
3. How to create an enhanced Podcast. Demonstrate the procedures involved in creating an
enhanced podcast using Garageband and Keynote then exporting it to Disk. (00:15)
4. Students have a ‘dummy run’ with the software creating anything they like around the principle
of enhanced podcasting. (00:10)
5. Students to come up with a plan of what will be in their podcast, how they will present it,
bulleted cues for speaking etc (00:20)
6. A short reminder of what is expected by the end of the session and how it will be of benefit
(00:05)
7. Students start work on their podcasts (00:10)
8. Break (00:20)
9. Students work on their podcasts and complete in this slot (00:45)
10. Students have time to share their podcasts and carry out an informal peer review session
(00:05)
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11. Plenary (00:05)
1. What has been learnt?
2. How has it been useful? / Has it been useful?
3. How might the skills learnt be of use in the future?

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Session 1 - Podcasting
Firstly, you need to set up Keynote to make slides that are the size needed for podcasting:

Click the inspector at the in the toolbar at the top in keynote

Go to the ‘Document Inspector’ page in the Inspector and drop down the slide size menu

Select ‘Custom Slide Size”

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Enter in ‘600 x 600’
This then allows you to create slides that will fit with the GarageBand format for an Enhanced
Podcast.
Create an outline of what you want in your podcast and create keynote slides to show each section.

Try to use big clear pictures of what you are trying to show and make the topic title clear, here you
can see the topic is clouds and the title is very visible.

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To create the Podcast itself, open GarageBand and select ‘Podcast’

Give the file a name and click Create, ignore the Tempo, signature and Key options, these are not
relevant to Podcasting.

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Click on the track for your gender (male / female) and record your voice using any prompts or
scripts you have prepared. Then click on the record button to record your voice, highlighted above.
It might be worth recording each section or topic individually so editing is easier later on if
necessary.
You can start and stop the recording at any time, press the spacebar while recording to stop and
press the record button again to resume recording.

With the separate clips, you can drag them around on the track to re-order them or to bring them
closer together.

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Once you have recorded yourself, you can drag jingles from the loop browser to the Jingles track to
add a bit of jazz to your recording.

Use the navigation buttons at the bottom of the GarageBand window to play through your podcast
so that you can check that it all sounds correct.

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Now drag each slide you have created to the
part of the audio recording where that topic is
talked about, this then makes the podcast
enhanced with visuals as well as audio.

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When playing though your podcast, click the preview of the podcast track to see a bigger preview of
the enhanced podcast track.

Once you have played through your podcast and you are happy with it, you need to export your
enhanced podcast to view it on another device such as an iPod or another computer, click from the
Share menu on the menu bar ‘Export Podcast to Disk...’

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Select the settings above to get the best quality for your podcast and ensure that the ‘Publish
Podcast’ setting is not ticked, this will reduce the quality of your visuals in your podcast and is
unnecessary.

Chose a location to save your podcast and click save.

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Ctrl + ‘Click’ the file where you saved it and select Quicktime from the options.

Enjoy and use your podcast in its full glory!

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Session 2 - Blogging
Once you have published your podcast to your blog and written a brief description, you now need to
think about your experience a little further. You should think about how you can take your new skills
and knowledge and use them to improve your own learning.

Task:
Create a blog post that outlines what you have been doing throughout
the day. What new skills have you learnt? Did you find it
challenging or easy? If you could do it again, what would you do
differently?
Then, think about how you could use the internet and blogging to
improve your learning? You may want to blog about:
• Using blogs as your own resource library for all of your
work (so you no longer have to remember a memory
stick or panic about losing work).
• How could it help your teachers? For example, being able
to mark your homework online.
• How can it help to keep your parents informed about the work you complete in school? For
example, giving them easy access to your work via the internet.
• How could it make your work even better (being able to use video etc. for your work instead of
just writing or drawing?)
• Finally, do you think this style of learning suits you better than the way you learn at the moment?

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