Maps for Audio Tours

For our next project we will be creating audio tours of public places. We will be working with Google Maps to complement our podcasts. To begin, the students need to share the links to their places on our discussion board. Here are directions to do that.

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Memoir Project, Part 1

This is the first batch of the students' memoirs. Very impressive.

When I started this class I emphasized to myself and the other people involved that the student podcasts weren’t supposed to be polished, professional-sounding work. In fact, when I had seen student plays and student newspapers that looked professional, there was often an overzealous teacher doing a lot of the work. I always felt that a focus on the professionalism of the final product took away from the students’ learning because it usually meant that the teacher was hijacking the work.

Then, as irony would have it, these audio memoirs come to my drop box. They are extremely polished, creative, and professional sounding—much better than I’m capable of. Listen to the first two memoirs that were submitted, “I’m a Good Boy, I Tell Ya’” and “The Day I Met Codie”

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related link: More on Memoirs

Audio Theater 1

Here are some of the students' audio plays from the Audio Theater 1 project. They each had to create an original story using the SAME dialogue. You can have students act as gangsters, robots, cop/criminal, spies, teacher/student, etc.

Person 1: I’ve been waiting for you.

Person 2: I’m sorry I’m late.

Person 1: That’s OK.

Person 2: Thank you.

Person 1: I have something for you.

Person 2: What is it?

Peron 1: This.

They had to write some brief narration and then add music and sound effects. The music and sound effects were from Creative Commons licensed material from CCMixter and the Free Sounds Project. The students created a range of characters--from gangsters to a married couple; from cops and robbers to a student and a principal.

Besides a focus on creative writing and audio editing, this project also introduced students to copyright, fair use, and the ethics of citing sources.

Enjoy the following five very different, short audio plays--all with the same dialogue

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