If the video doesn’t run follow the TeacherTube link – http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=0caf60d28b852556d52f

The site says of itself “CuePrompter is a free teleprompter/autocue service. Your browser works like a teleprompter -no extra software needed.” and it does exactly what it says on the can! Ideal for video voice overs, podcasting, role play …….

http://www.cueprompter.com/
 

 In a reply to Anthony’s post Dan Plane said…

“I think it’s worth adding to the “why bother” reasons for podcasting (and indeed blogging or any other ICT applications.) that it’s a part of the world we live in now and will almost certainly be a part of the world our pupils will be living in. We shouldn’t be trailing behind everyone else, we should be up at the front to give our pupils as much of a head start as possible!”

And whilst I agree with Dan, I think the currrent climate of initative after initiative in schools, measn that teachers need something more than this to convince them to give podcasting a try.

Last week I was unexpectedly invited to work with some Y6 children, to turn existing play scripts into podcasts. Firewall issues meant that we couldn’t upload the podcasts to the web, but this just didn’t matter. The experience was enough in itself.

Anthony asked whether podcasts should be scripted before publication and after my experience I would say, emphatically, yes. What came out of the experience for the children was, apart from the pleasure of creating the podcast, the benefit of the editing process.  The children recorded their scripts, then listened to them and edited out the inevitable gaffs that appear in a first attempt. When they listened a second time an unexpected self-critiquing came into play. The recordings were a reflection of life in Victorian times and the children began to discuss styles of speech, misplaced references to contemporary objects and events, and the mood their scripts were trying to capture. Editing began in earnest but with criteria set by the children themselves.

The next step is to take the scripts back to the classroom to ‘close the loop’ by reviewing what has been written in the light of the podcasting experience.

Do all this with a tape recording? I think not.

Hopefully the recordings will shortly be available on the school’s website, at which point I will post a link here.

It will be interesting to see what the project schools do with the software! I’m pleased that the teachers attending the course shared my  excitement – I just wish I could answer the question “Why is this better than just using a tape recorder?”

This site provides royalty free music of a quality that is beyond the usual midi files that are available free of charge. There is a request that usage is credited and the option to make a donation to the site.

The only downside is that the files are in mp3 format which may not get through your LA firewall. I downloaded the files I whilst I was home, and e-mailed them to myself as a zip file – there’s a way round everything it seems!