Third graders at Chamberlayne Elementary have been researching famous African Americans for African American History Month. Today I helped them create movies (podcasts) about their people in Garage Band. The students were able to choose the famous person they wanted to research and they worked with a partner to plan a script. I gave them a folder of images that you can download by clicking here. Students also had the option of finding pictures online. Our first step was to drag the pictures into the Garage Band project. Next, the students recorded their voiceovers and adjusted the length of their pictures to match the audio narration. Our last step was to add some background music. I exported them as QuickTime videos so that they could be posted to a blog or website. Take a look at some student samples: Muhammad Ali and Michelle Obama.

The end of the year is sometimes the best time to try out something new with technology. Maybe you haven’t had time during the year to really delve into a project, but now that the pressure of testing is over, you have some free time. Instead of just watching videos, why not have your students make their own videos or podcasts. Here’s one example that I’ve set up for you in GarageBand. It goes through the hardships of Jamestown. I have a picture of each hardship (swampy land, brackish water, disease, and lack of skills, SOL VS.3f) and students must record their voices explaining the hardships. They can also add in background music and sound effects. I’ve created a how-to video here, and in the video I explain how to put a copy of the template into each student folder quickly using an automator. You can download the automator on this page. Click here to download the “Jamestown Hardships” template, and you can see a sample podcast by clicking here. Go ahead and try something new here at the end!