Exploring Audacity

Audio Editing

This week our main focus was to learn how to work with audio using the computer program Audacity.

Students learned how to:

• download audio files from both the sd67 portal and from sound effects websites
• import audio into Audacity
• cut sections of audio
• add a second audio track
• move audio tracks

A screenshot showing audio tracks in Audacity.

Students chose one of the audio recordings of the 'When Suddenly...' stories we had made in earlier classes and then chose sounds effects to go with the stories.  The emphasis was on exploring and learning new skills and not trying to come up with a final polished product.  

We are using Audacity because the school district has it on its list of approved software, but it would be my first choice anyway since it has lots of great functions and it is free, open source software.  If any of the students really gets into working with audio, they can download a free copy for Mac, Linux or Windows.  See the Audacity tab on this website for more info as well as short some short video tutorials on how to do the basics in Audacity.

Microphone Skills and Storytelling

This week we tried a different storytelling activity called 'Once Upon A Time'.  Before starting the story each person was asked to think of a person, place or thing.  We then went around the class with each person contributing a sentence to the story, but they had to include their person place or thing in the story.  It was pretty fun and we got some interesting stories!  We recorded the stories again using the field recorder.  Students are getting quite good at holding the microphone the correct distance from their mouth and at a good angle so as to avoid getting popping sounds (plosives). 

Coming Up

Pretty soon students will be ready to do their own recordings and editing them.  That's when things will really get interesting!

Thanks for checking in to see what we've been up to.

Research and Flags

Here are some of the things we did... This Week In Gifted.

Flags!

The Wednesday afternoon grade 1-2 class started looking at flags as a way that we communicate who we are.  We looked at the Canadian flag that is flying out front at Wiltse Elementary.  We brought the flag down to the bottom of the flagpole and many of us were surprised at how big it was.  We talked about what it means when a flag is at half-mast.  The students then went on the computer to explore different flags of the world.  Many of the students were inspired to make coloured sketches of the flags they found.  Below is a slideshow with some of our favourite flags.  Included are some of the student sketches and then some of our favourites (the flag images came from Flags of the World and The World Flag Database.)  

Researching Topics in Communication

Last week students brainstormed a variety of possible topics under the broad theme of communication.  This week the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday grade 3, 4 and 5 classes all spent some time doing research on their topic.  The ASPIRE students (Summerland gr 4 & 5) faced challenges as the computer system was operating very S L O W L Y.  The students are finding out some interesting things in their research.  For instance, Olivia found out that when there is a noisy background frogs communicate by flapping their hind feet in the air.  Who knew?

Audio Recording with Audacity

The Wednesday and Thursday morning grade 5 classes have been the guinea pigs for trying out Audacity.  Audacity is a free open source software program for recording and editing audio (it can be downloaded here).  We will be using this program to record our radio shows.  We encountered a few problems with the program not launching, so not all were able to try it out.  Great problem solving though by Connor and Josh.  Hopefully the bugs are worked out now and it will work for everyone.  

The Wrap Up

These were a few of the things we did this week.  Thanks for checking in with us!