Invention Commercials

Inventions & Inspirations: The History of Recorded Sound
Originally uploaded by Second Story

Last week I had the chance to work with our sixth grade history students on creating commercial recordings. They were doing research on 20th century inventions such as airplanes, washer machines, bubble gum and even kool aid! Their teacher had already designed a lesson where the students research their invention and create a poster with the research information included. She mentioned to me that she wanted to "jazz up" the lesson a bit and the first thing I thought of was a podcast. We decided to have the students work in pairs instead and then in addition to the poster, have them record a commercial persuading others to buy the invention and which would showcase their poster.

While completing research the students filled out a worksheet with the following elements:
- Name of the invention
- Name of the inventor
- Date invention was created
- Impact invention had on society
- Any other important information

The teacher and I quickly created a sample commercial for the kids on the Transcontinental Railroad. We had to substitute a train's horn for a ship's fog horn, but we explained to the students that they may also have to think creatively with their sounds effects. You could see them start to think about they could supercharge their recordings.

After two days in the library and using computers for research and to print out pictures of their inventions, the students started on their commercial scripts, which also had to include the above information. Once the script was approved, students were allowed to begin recording their commercials. We used the program Garageband on our macbooks and set up an enhanced audio podcast and the students learned how to record voices, which tracks to record on, and how to add music and sound effects. We allowed the students about 20-30 minutes for this process. Luckily, we had the additional help of another TRT to help us. As students were recording, others were working on their posters. After the students finished recording, we added pictures of their posters to the podcast track as featured album art. By creating the enhanced podcast, this allowed us to show their posters and hear their commercial at the same time. On the afternoon of their second day of recording, we took the commercials, turned them into m4a files and then created a website on iweb for all three classes commercials.

Did I mention this was my first time using Garageband? I'm thrilled with the results and the sound quality of the recordings. I will be using Garageband again soon!

What do think of our commercials? Have any ideas for how you could use Garageband in your classroom?

The Traveling Stories

Here's are the websites that I mentioned yesterday:

The Traveling Stories

and

Virginia Trekkers

I attended a couple more sessions yesterday. I attended one with John Hendron, which was about podcasting and using this tool more effectively in the classroom. I think I got some great ideas! 4 more sessions today.

VSTEing away

I'm at the Virginia Society for Technology Education (VSTE) Conference in Roanoke this week. I'm having a blast so far! Yesterday, I attended my first two sessions. The first one was about travelling stories through podcasts. Two schools in Henrico County will take one class or group and start a story, record it and then send the story to another group or class. That class would then have to finish it. Once the whole process was through, the two groups would get together and then listen to whole story. I'm not giving it the full justice here and I can't remember the website at the moment, but I'll give that in my update.

My best story from the conference so far is this: In the first timers session, I sat down not really paying attention to where I was sitting. Another woman engaged myself and the person sitting next to me in a conversation. The woman beside me said she was from Tazewell, VA. Before going to college, I never would have known where this was, however, I told the woman that I had been there, having gone home once with a friend of mine who lived there. We talked for a few more minutes, before I asked the woman her last name. When she told me, I couldn't help laughing! I told her, not only had I been in Tazewell, I'd been to her house! Definitely giving me a strange look, she realized I was her daughter's friend from college! We exchanged phone numbers and she updated me on her daughter. Small world, indeed! Thought I would share. I'll be back with more later.