6.5 Skill Development

Skill: Editing Audio

6.5 Skill Development

Skill: Working with and editing audio. (Audacity or OcenAudio) - Create an Audio Podcast

Required

Sometimes Google Drive may have trouble playing an audio file. If you get this error message, try clicking on the "Open with Music Player for Google." That will work most often. If you still have trouble, download the file directly to your computer and play it.

In the 21st century, it is important to become fluent in writing, speaking, working with audio and video, and even coding. This week, we want you to work with audio in the form of a podcast. There are many apps and applications that allow you to work with audio. For this course, we would like to introduce you two free programs, Audacity (Links to an external site.) and ocenAudio (Links to an external site.). With either of them, you can quickly record and edit audio. You can multi-track - meaning that after you add your voice, you can add music, sound effects, and more. For being free and open source, Audacity is one of the most powerful audio editors out there. A bit easier to use, but not quite as powerful, there's ocenAudio (Links to an external site.) - a slick, classy, fast, free audio editor!

Your assignment this week is to produce a professional sounding MP3 podcast that is around 2 minutes long. Anyone can just record audio - that's easy! Your goal is to make it sound professional and interesting by actually editing your recording - removing unwanted sounds, making the volume levels perfect, adding other sounds, etc.

We'd like you to choose one of the following topics to focus on in your podcast:

  • An audio podcast that teaches your students about a particular topic.
  • An audio podcast that shares a teaching strategy or an idea with your classmates

Feel free to team up with a classmate or two and produce a podcast together. It makes it more interesting and fun! Each person on your team will need to submit your team audio podcast in the Canvas assignment in order to receive credit.

Let's begin with a few sample audio podcasts, so you get the idea of what a podcast is. Pick a couple of them to listen to...

Now, pick one of the free audio editing applications below to download, learn to use, and create your MP3 podcast with it! I use both on PCs and on Macs - they're both awesome applications.

Option 1: Audacity


Audacity (Links to an external site.): Audacity is a cross-platform (Windows, Macintosh, Linux), free, easy-to-use, multi-track (Links to an external site.) audio editor and recorder. It is amazingly powerful - you can do almost anything audio with this program! It will save in many audio formats, but you'll have to install a separate add-on to save your audio as an Mp3 file. Some students have struggled with that part. We'd be happy to help you with the MP3 add-on if you need. View Audacity's feature set! (Links to an external site.)

Tutorial for Audacity - go through the video - A Complete Introduction to Audacity, or the screencast tutorials below.

Audacity: Complete Tutorial Guide to Audacity for Beginners

Using ocenaudio, a free audio recorder/editor (Links to an external site.)

Audacity Manual

 

Watch on YouTube

Tutorials:


Watch on YouTube


Watch on YouTube

Option 2: Ocenaudio

ocenaudio (Links to an external site.): ocenaudio is a cross-platform (Windows, Macintosh, Linux), easy to use, fast and functional single-track audio editor. It is the ideal software for people who need to edit and analyze audio files. ocenaudio also has powerful features that will please more advanced users. It is easy to use, fast, and amazingly good! It saves to many audio formats, including MP3, without having to install any add-ons. View ocenaudio's feature set! (Links to an external site.)

Tutorial for ocenaudio - go through this online PDF tutorial (Links to an external site.) to learn how to use ocenaudio. 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Nxto9GzDIR2mH1WNXF1MCvNtPM-Nw8qDfUwNnwOtvtE/preview?rm=minimal (Links to an external site.)

I love using ocenaudio to quickly edit my audio files. I can do fade ins, fade outs, pull together a music playlist by copying and pasting music tracks one after the other. I always do my audio for PowerPoint or Google Slides presentations in ocenaudio, because I can so easily edit and clean them up. Then I just insert the mp3 audio files I create in ocenaudio into my slides.  It's a wonderful audio editing tool for teachers and students.

Tutorials:

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube


Chromebook Tools

Do you have a Chromebook? Then you'll need to use an online editing program, or playstore application for doing your podcast.​ Audacity or ocenaudio will not work on a Chromebook. Click here (Links to an external site.) to be taken to an article that leads you to audio editors for Chromebooks.

Audio Recording Tools for Chromebooks


Expand Your Horizons

  Pick at least one to explore.

 Podcasts for Educators 

 Best Free Audio Editing Software:

Watch on YouTube

How to Record & Edit a Podcast in Garageband:

Watch on YouTube

60-Second Strategy: Professional Courtesy:

Watch on YouTube

60-Second Strategy: Shout Outs:

Watch on YouTube

Optional Resources

      These resources are not required!

There are millions more that you could use in your classroom!  Check out these sites...

Assignment 6: Audio Podcast

Your assignment this week is to produce an MP3 podcast that is at least 2 minutes long. We'd like you to choose one of the following topics to focus on in your podcast:

  • An audio podcast that teaches your students about a particular topic.
  • An audio podcast that shares a teaching strategy or an idea with your classmates

1. Download and install Audacity or Ocenaudio on your computer or laptop and test it out.  Or if you are on the Logan campus, come visit the YETC (Education building room 170). The 76 computers in the YETC all have Audacity and Ocenaudio installed already. We also have microphones you can use. You can view YETC's business hours here (Links to an external site.).

2. Decide on your podcast topic and write your script. (Unless you want to edit out a lot of "Ummm" or "uh" - a script helps you eliminate those.)

3. Record your script in Audacity or Ocenaudio, and edit out any errors. Make it sound professional. Be sure to use the compressor and normalize effects on your track, as was demonstrated in the screencast tutorials.

Uploaded Image

4. Add any additional tracks such as background music or sound effects. If you're a singer, with Audacity you can harmonize with yourself or have conversations with yourself or others. The possibilities are endless. Be creative! And be sure to save your project from time to time.

5. Make sure everything plays just the way you want it - perfect in every way. Then save your project. Then export your project as an MP3 audio file. If you're using Audacity, you will need the LAME MP3 encoder plugin (Links to an external site.) if you haven't already installed it. Ocenaudio will save MP3 natively without any additional installations.

  • If you experience any trouble getting the LAME MP3 encoder installed on your computer - message me in Canvas and I'll send you the file. 

6. As you've done earlier, save your MP3 audio file to your Google Drive and share it so that anyone with a link can listen to it. Then shorten that link and post it into the Week 6 Podcast assignment. All the links will be shared with the rest of the class.

Other options for audio recording:

https://online-voice-recorder.com/ 

https://vocalremover.org/online-voice-recorder

 https://www.veed.io/record 

Tutorials:

Online Voice Recorder:

Watch on YouTube

Veed.io:

Watch on YouTube
Assignment 6 - Audio Podcast
W03 - Screencast
CriteriaRatingsPts
Evaluation of the Screencast
15 pts
A=Accepted
10 pts
This needs more work, or needs to more carefully follow instructions.
0 pts
D=Do Over (Didn't follow directions, Needed to be more complete, or was not completed)
15 pts
Total Points: 15
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