What is a vodcast? It's a podcast with video.
Do your students give presentations? do experiments? write reports? perform dramatizations? If so, vodcasting is a fun and easy way to motivate your students.
- Presentations: Do your students research a famous person or historical figure? Now they can pretend to be that person in an interview! Of course, there will need to be an interviewer and an interviewee, so this is a perfect opportunity for collaborative script writing as well as historical research. If the projects need to be individual, the student could pretend to be his or her historical figure and act out something he or she would have likely done. If you want to get really creative, get the whole class involved in a news broadcast from a different time in history.
- Debate: Do your students need practice supporting their ideas with evidence from their reading or research? They can convince you of their position using data, words, pictures, and sound!
- Writing: Act out a creative writing assignment like a play or turn a personal narrative into a digital story with photos and sound effects.
- Demonstrations: Have students demonstrate a solution to a problem on a vodcast . . . like how they will help their school "go green."
- Experiments: Do you want your students to ask why in science more often? Help motivate them to understand at a deeper level by having them do the experiment demonstration. They have to be prepared to not only do the experiment but also to explain the whys and hows along the way!
- Reports: Have students spice up written reports by requiring a short video that summarizes the theme of the report--after all, a picture is worth 1,000 words!
- Photostories: For a creative twist at the end of a unit on a specific time period, artist, or (you fill in the blank), have students pick the most defining images of that time, event, etc. They can select music appropriate to the theme and play it as a vodcast.
- Sharing work: Share your vodcasts by giving out the Web address for viewing.
- Script writing and storyboarding: It is a good idea to have students write a script and do some storyboarding before they start looking for sound effects or working with the images or video. After they have an idea of what they are going to say and do, they can do the fun video effects. It is tempting to get carried away by effects, so make them have the content first.
- Remember to get parental and administrative permission before uploading student work to the Web!
- Fair Use and Copyright: An Internet search for “free sound effects” or “free clip art” will turn up a good deal of information that is in the public domain. It’s a good idea to remind students what they can and cannot use before beginning vodcasts. Have them ask themselves: Do I own this? To whom will I distribute it? Is giving credit (citing) enough in this case? (Try using this tool to help you: http://copyrightwebsite.com/Info/FairUse/Visualizer/Visualizer.aspx)
Useful tools . . .
- YouTube.com or TeacherTube.com
- Audacity (free audio editor)
- computer with Internet connection
- digital video camera (I recommend the Flip. It's cheap and easy to use with students.)
- Windows Movie Maker (PC/Windows) or iMovie (Apple/Mac)--These should already be on your computer.
- MP3 player program (like iTunes) with music in the public domain OR Garageband to create your own music (if you have a Mac)
- microphone attachment/built in microphone for computer (if recording audio separately from video) and sound recording/editing software (If none comes free with your computer, try Audacity.)
I would encourage you to read the post entitled “Getting started . . .” before diving in.
If you have had success with a lesson involving vodcasting, please share your pearls of wisdom through a comment to this post!
Angela CMG
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