Audiobooks

[|Audiobooks, Instructional Readers & Shared Books]


There are lots of Audiobooks available for download online on iTunes, but rarely the one you want! Harry Potter books are available on the US iTunes site but not on our NZ iTunes (What's up with that?) But if you have an iPod, a 5 way splitter Belkin Rockstar (NZ $20) and cheap headphones (NZ $2.99) then you can create absorbing reading activities for your students.

Record your voice in GarageBand (Mac) or [|Audacity](Win) (or try out [|Aviary], select the Audio Editor). Upload to iTunes and download to your iPod.

Kids love the iPods and the headphones and this makes for a very 'q-u-i-e-t' activity!

More Ideas Or what about when you can't get to every reading group, record the questions you would normally ask as part of the recording. Students can pause the iPod to look up or find the answers.
 * 1) Do you know somebody who has an interesting, expressive voice, ask them to read for you and record them
 * 2) Record in theatre reading style where you have different voices reading the parts of the characters and narrator
 * 3) Junior teachers ask teachers of Senior children to get their students to record some of your instructional readers or shared books
 * 4) More able readers in the class can create audiobooks for less able students
 * 5) Keep a box of the books/Journals/Instructional readers that you have recorded so that children can choose their favourite story to listen to

= Recording Audiobooks as part of Guided Reading Lesson = I was working with a wonderful young teacher at Willowbank school last week. She was recording the children's voices in Garageband while they read their book Aunty Mo's Kids by Jill Eggleton. They had recorded reading it in [|theatre style]. Now they were adding sounds to it. While they were working together I came to a realisation and said to the teacher "Do you know what you are doing here? You have moved from the traditional teacher and students sitting on the mat guided reading lesson to the student centred, teacher facilitated using technology guided reading collaboration." This teacher had been using all the '[|Guided Reading' steps of responding to and discussing text] while the students were in front of the computer, reading their books, searching for words and sentences in context, recording voices and sounds, learning computer skills, collaborating together and creating an audiobook that they will be able to use in their classroom as an extra activity ([|with iPods]) and share with other classes. As I said to her, "this is another way of teaching and engaging children in learning, that you do not have to teach always in the traditional style. Your activity could also become your teaching time with the children." media type="custom" key="6999995"

As teachers we have to be brave and let go or adjust some of our traditional delivery methods to incorporate the use of technologies such as computers, cameras, iPods, IWB's, game consoles, or Flip videos. The children will be engaged, on task and learning, you as the teacher will see different aspects of your children as they become more animated and in control of their learning.