Lesson Plan for Collaborative Podcast Project

1. First outline some of the goals and requirements of the project to students. This can be part of a class handout describing the details of the project. The rubric outlining aspects of language use, content and organization of the podcasts is discussed with students. As an alternative, students could be directed to help decide on the aspects of the rubric together with the teacher while looking at examples of podcasts

2. Split up the class into groups of 3-4 students. Together in their groups students refine their topics and decide what they will focus on for their podcast.

3. For students discussing things to do in Istanbul, for example, they need to choose the place or places in the city they will discuss.

4. Next students need to begin gathering information about their topics and consolidating it. This may include doing some internet research and drawing upon the experiences and knowledge of different students.

5. Once this information has been gathered, students can work on writing the script for the podcast. It may be necessary to have students do some research on the internet to look at a few examples of other podcasts so they get the idea of how to put their information into the script format.

6. Encourage students to include an interactive podcast where all members of the group are sharing speaking roles. Students can consider having one person take more of an interviewer role and the other students acting as the knowledgeable interviewees.

7. As students are working on their scripts, the teacher walks around to different groups and makes suggestions about content, sequencing and vocabulary use.

8. When students have completed the script, then the students practice reading their parts with the teacher providing feedback on pronunciation. Students also are directed to look up synonyms in an online thesaurus for words that get repeated often to add complexity to their script.

9. Students practice recording their script using Audacity. This may take multiple attempts until it students are satisfied with the quality. Explain to students they will be posting this online where others will listen to it, so the quality should be good. Students can also be directed to select music to accompany their podcasts. They can integrate music from itunes or another music player of their choosing.

10. Once the podcasts have been recorded and saved on the computer, the teacher has students upload their podcasts to a page on PodOmatic.

11. Then students can add pictures to their podcasts on the PodOmatic page. 12. Once students are satisfied with the final product, then they can be given the

rubrics and asked to evaluate the other group’s podcasts and write feedback. 13. The final aspect of the project involves the students and teacher providing

feedback on the different podcasts.