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Points to Consider if you want to do your own podcasting project. Created by Huntcliffe School, Redcar and Cleveland.

How To Prepare Materials for an Audio & Virtual Trail

This project was originally designed for a Year 7 (World War 2) and Year 8 (Victorian) History Club at Huntcliff School. The idea was that students would produce a town trail which could be downloadable to an MP3 player or ipod. This would mean that a person could walk to a place of interest (shown as a hotspot on the map on the website) and then listen to the relevant student commentary on the History of the area. Further information could be accessed from the website on each hot spot, along with the student commentary allied to photos and videos for those unable to visit in person.

This summary aims to distil some of the lessons learned so that others approaching similar projects do not need to reinvent the wheel. Although this project had a specific history focus many of the lessons learned are also applicable to other areas. An environmental club could produce a real / virtual tour about pond life, an English / Drama class could produce one about a theatre or a Geography project could produce a tour about a site visit, for example.

Preparation

• It is apparently impossible to overbudget for the amount of time and preparation required for a project like this to go smoothly! To start with it is necessary to have an idea of what the finished project should look like – how many hotspots there should be and where they are likely to be located, for example.
• Identify a target audience (e.g. Year 6 of a local primary school) as this gives students a focus to measure their material against.
• When costing and purchasing resources advice may be available from your ICT Department, a local CLC or an ICT supplier. Think about the versatility of the resources you purchase. Originally MP3 players seemed a good option, but consideration of the necessity of including a video element within the virtual tour meant that video cameras were a more flexible option. Ultimately we opted to purchase through a local supplier as this gave us (a) technical advice, (b) community involvement (this might help us publicise our website in the future) and (c) gave us some protection against technological malfunction.
• Technological restraints may limit your project unless you think creatively. The time and technical skills required to actually produce a multimedia website were prohibitive, so we actually asked the local ICT supplier to take responsibility for the web design as well.
• Think carefully about community groups which may be willing to contribute to your project. Ultimately Saltburn Victorian Society, 2 local historians, and someone who remembered World War 2, contributed voluntarily to help students research their respective historical periods. Inviting members of the community into school involves a lot of forethought if the material is to be used to the best advantage – our output and usage of material would have been greatly increased if we could have used more of the material directly on the website by making sure that speakers talked directly to the video camera etc.
• Make sure that you have ordered any necessary resources in good time, and that you are aware of how to use any hardware and software you will require. For us, this involved becoming familiar with using new video cameras, as well as using Windows Movie Maker, Adobe Photo Shop and Audacity.
• Selecting the right number and type of students is vital. A smaller rather than a larger group is ideal – 12 students is probably the maximum achievable with one member of staff as support needs to be given to individuals or pairs as necessary. Students must be capable of working independently or as a pair to develop their own part of the project.
• Be aware of ‘snags’ which may delay implementation of parts of the project. Not being able to track down a decent version of a map to use meant that students were not able to get a feel for what the website might look like or begin to develop how they wanted the user interface to look.
• Try not to be over ambitious. In the time available we could really EITHER have created a website with hotspots, a printable map and audio commentaries OR a virtual tour. To try to do both was to lead to missed deadlines and moments of crisis! In retrospect a better approach would have been to start smaller but with the vision to expand the website later with other projects and developments.

Practicalities with the Students

• Students need to understand what the project is about and what they are working towards. The more examples that can be produced of what they are trying to achieve, the better. They need to have the focus of the end product while they complete their research – not easy when the idea is innovative and they can’t see a similar completed website.
• Arrange for students to research the information they need as soon as possible. They need to think carefully about how they record the information – a combination of video clips and notes are helpful. Research may take the form of a site visit, a visitor into school, or reference to archive material.
• Break any information down into manageable chunks as soon as possible. This may mean dividing videos into short clips and renaming each clip appropriately. It may mean typing notes up under headings e.g. Valley Gardens and collecting as much information as possible under each heading. Students need to be able to identify the information relevant to their own part of the project quickly. Otherwise a lot of time is wasted.
• Decide on the most central part of the project and ask students to focus on this first. For us this was the audio commentaries for each hotspot. Students drafted commentaries based on the typed notes from their research. They then recorded these. This then formed the basis for information to be linked to relevant photos and video clips.
• For the virtual tour the audio commentaries now needed a visual component and this was given by adding photos and video clips using Windows Movie Maker.
• As time permitted a menu of other items could also be added to each hotspot – relevant photos, clips from interviews (with accompanying photos or video) etc.
• Be aware that clips should be kept to 2-3 minutes in length. This is because of the need for them to be downloadable but also because of the length of time people are likely to sustain interest for when surfing the web or listening on an ipod.
• Consider making the website as accessible as possible for all users e.g. subtitles help the hearing impaired, and some colour schemes are impossible for those who are colour blind to access. These are best avoided.

Celebrating Success

• Ask some volunteers in your target audience to test out the trail for any unforeseen problems.
• Ask people who have contributed to the project or who are in the target audience to the launch of the website. Involve other interested parties such as parents, governors and community groups.

Files to Download

File	Description	File size
How_to_Hatipods.doc		34 Kb