NOW Classrooms, Grades 6-8. Meg Ormiston

fluency, it also allows students to record their feedback on their peers’ projects and gives them the possibility to broadcast their recording to a larger audience.

      Loads of apps allow students to record their voices. Several LMS platforms, like Seesaw (http://web.seesaw.me) and Showbie (www.showbie.com), support audio recording for student collaboration, as do apps like Soundtrap (www.soundtrap.com) and QuickVoice (www.nfinityinc.com/quickvoiceip.html). For this lesson, we suggest VoiceThread (https://voicethread.com), a website that allows students to create visual presentations while using voice for collaboration and communication. Students can use this tool to add recorded audio to their presentations or record commentary for feedback on their peers’ projects.

       Process: Recording an Audiovisual Presentation

      Use the following four steps to record a simple audiovisual presentation.

       TECH TIPS

       VoiceThread allows students to add an additional visual flourish to audiovisual presentations by drawing directly on their slides.

       Students can use many free music sources to add music to their presentations. SoundCloud and ccMixter, for example, have free music collections that students can access by searching the Creative Commons website (https://search.creativecommons.org).

      1. Tell students to select an app, or apps, for their presentation. Apps like VoiceThread allow students to create visual presentations and audio side by side. Students can also use a presentation app like PowerPoint or Google Slides for their visuals and a separate app to record audio that they can then save and insert into the presentation.

      2. Have students create their project visuals, adding in pictures, video, or other visual content they want to use.

      3. When other edits are complete, instruct students to insert or record audio that goes along with their presentation. For this project, the audio source could be recorded narration, a sound-effect track, or a music track.

      4. When they finish, have students save and export or share their project for the class to see and listen to.

       Connections

      You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.

      • English language arts: Ask students to analyze the word choices that an author makes in a story and use an audiovisual project to highlight and narrate how those choices affect the story’s connotation.

      • Social science: Have students create an audiovisual presentation about the history of immigration in the United States. They should record narration that explains the pictures or videos they select. Or they can use text in their presentation and, for the audio, include songs that represent the immigrant culture they study.

      • Science: Instruct students to record an interview with an adult about how to go green.

      • Foreign language: Ask students to record themselves reading a passage or essay in the language they study so that the teacher can assess pronunciation.

      • Music: Have students include audio in an audiovisual presentation about their favorite musical artist or a musical period they study.

      Learning goal:

      I can add depth to my learning presentations by creating my own audio clips that incorporate music, narration, and sound effects.

       Operational: Mixing Audio Like a DJ

      Adding multiple audio tracks to a single project allows students to produce more complex work that enhances its quality and professionalism for a wider audience. From fictional narratives to informative podcasts, students who mash up multiple audio sources find themselves making critical decisions about the content they create that communicates their learning in more powerful and dynamic ways.

      For this lesson, we recommend UJAM (www.ujam.com), an online audio mixer that allows you to record your voice and combine it with various styles of music to create unique songs. To use UJAM, students need to create an account with a school G Suite email address or another school email address. The free version limits audio recordings to three minutes. Other app options include GarageBand (www.apple.com/mac/garageband) and Smule’s AutoRap (www.smule.com/apps).

       Process: Recording a Mixed-Audio Product

      Use the following five steps to have students create a mixed-audio product using multiple audio elements.

       TEACHING TIP

      Students should practice saying what they plan to record out loud numerous times before recording. This minimizes headaches and gives them a great way to practice fluency.

      1. Have students select an audio-mixing app and create a new project.

      2. Tell students to record an initial audio element for their project. This can include recording music lyrics, recording narrative content, or even recording their own music. Most recording apps include settings students can use to configure the app for the style of audio they intend to record.

       TECH TIPS

       If the app students use requests access to their device’s camera or microphone, they should allow it.

       To protect their work from getting lost, students should always export audio files to a cloud-based storage platform, like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or Dropbox.

      3. Tell students to use the app to add additional audio elements to their recording, such as background music for lyrics or narration. Apps like UJAM and GarageBand often provide multiple copyright-free styles of music or rhythmic beats to accompany recordings, ranging in style from acoustic rock to hip-hop.

      4. Have students review their finished project and edit or tweak it to their liking. If they don’t like their product, they can always rerecord audio or try a different style of backing music.

      5. When satisfied with their work, students should save and export it or share their project to the classroom LMS or social media account.

       Connections

      You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.

      • English language arts: Ask students to record themselves reading a previously written essay or story using an audio-mixing app and then add complementary music and sound effects.

      • Mathematics: Have students use an audio-mixing app to record themselves explaining the steps required to solve an equation and share the recording with the class. For example, they could write lyrics for a song about angles and add matching background music.

      • Social science: Have students create a song that uses vocabulary from a social science unit as the lyrics and record themselves singing it with an audio-mixing app.

      • Science: