Leading view papers – Days 1 to 7

Audio in schools: from compliance to commitment

Listen to Mike Kinnaird's audio presentation by clicking here (3.5MB MP3 file). Please note that you need headphones and/or speakers to listen to the audio file as well as software such as Windows Media Player (download here), Real Player (download here) or Apple iTunes Player (download here) installed on your computer that will play an MP3 file.

A transcript of the audio presentation is provided below.

Tell me, and I will forget.
Show me, and I may remember.
Involve me, and I will understand.
Confucius, 450 B.C.

Introduction

There are plenty of quotations to draw upon as above. All relevant today, perhaps confusing, or not deemed interesting in the past.

Without getting too involved in all this, perhaps the starting point should be the briefest look at John Reith, the first director general of the BBC in 1922.

After being Director General for just a year or so, he invited the Archbishop of Canterbury and his wife around to dinner. There weren’t many radio sets in homes, so the Archbishop was invited to listen. The radio in the dining room was switched on, and this caused a great deal of surprise to the Archbishop and his wife who said, ‘I’m absolutely astonished that the radio waves can travel through the windows! I was expecting you’d have to open the windows so that the radio waves were let in’.

The BBC was itself a technology-led organisation from day one. It was formed by a consortium of wireless manufacturers in the UK who had the technology and wanted the public to take it up and decided that nobody seemed to be willing to provide any programs. It took a formidable six-foot seven inch engineer from Scotland to create a global industry and popular culture.

Famously, he was responsible for the BBC motto, ‘Nation shall speak unto Nation’.
Whilst technology continues to surprise one generation, as in 1922, it is simply a tool to another. We have now the opportunity to harness the exact same principle and enable learners to lead from the front, committed to their learning and sharing that experience way beyond their classroom.  The’ can-do’ attitude Reith developed as a young man in America prior to returning to the UK to take up his appointment should now be embraced to allow today’s student to ‘speak unto nation’ and grow.

The beginning

The basis is straightforward enough.  We can’t continue as before.  If we are to engage the mp3, remote control generation, then we must move on.

This requires leadership, vision, and a desire to encourage students to take some share of responsibility in their learning.  Although that learning can be led by the teacher, the role of facilitator and mentor becomes dominant over traditional chalk and talk. Using audio in schools has a lengthy list of opportunities. However it does require a seismic shift in the attitude of some teachers.  It’s beyond their experience and to some extent takes away their absolute control over a situation – I have knowledge which I am passing on and you will write down.  In the model I am proposing the experience is rather more on an equal footing.  The teacher has subject knowledge, which the students can translate (in some cases) in to a product, be that an audio file, podcast, mp3 download, listen again or CD.  The perfect scenario clearly would be that the teacher embraces their own development and not only takes on board audio recording and editing but shapes the overall production, bouncing ideas from the students to create the best delivery method.

This is not easy. There are many teachers still, who sit warily with email and the internet, asking them to take on digital audio skills will be a challenge. However, to spin a full circle, we can’t carry on as before.  Someone somewhere has to take on the ‘can-do’ attitude and create change. 

This should not be interpreted as yet another demand on teachers to do more. They can not.  The UK curriculum and timetable is already at capacity and asking to do more would encourage yet more resistance and anger and any initiative would collapse. This is about working differently and smarter, for both teacher and student.

Although initial projects would need to be developed and produced, taking some considerable time, it is short term pain for long-term gain. Once produced, those audio products can be added to or modified quickly and cheaply, both in cost and time. Crucially they can be adopted by the student who takes over some of the responsibility of that continuous development and they can be shared, not just with partners or teams, but globally when relevant.

It’s the global village, the digital classroom, call it what you will; but it rests with an idea that’s been there in front of us for over 80 years.  It’s the technology that’s different.  The process I am outlining – using audio in the classroom – is very cheap, very fast to turnaround with clear, identifiable outcomes that not only energise lessons but talk to students in their language, encompass personalisation, speaking and listening and create effective learners.

I’ve got something to say

Those of us involved in broadcasting over the years were faced with editing ¼ inch magnetic tape on reel-to-reel recorders.  It took years to learn the skills.  Many professional broadcast journalists avoided editing if at all possible when asked relying instead on studio managers who carried out the process day after day.  Tapes twisted and caught around tape spools leaving them useless.  It was a craft. To ask students or anyone outside the industry to learn how to record, edit and mix would have been nonsense.  The equipment was prohibitively expensive, the skills detailed and for what? To end up with a small reel of tape that needed a machine most people didn’t own or had never seen.  So although the idea, as in radio, was there, executing it in the way I am proposing now was not for discussion.

It’s only really in the past five years that the shift has occurred.  The technology is cheap, the skills required basic and almost everyone can both hear it and take part.
With those problems out of the way, creativity, vision and imagination take over.

Although it looks complex at first glance, digital recording and editing is extremely simple and can be used by even very young children.  Older 14-19 students of course can really take it on and create complex, highly informative and creative materials; and many will have tried something similar anyway using Windows MovieMaker or other video editing products at home unbeknown to parents.

Inclusive not exclusive should be understood at this point.  Many people have home PCs, most schools, even in remote areas possess a computer.  So unlike the reel-to-reel tape recorder, the output device is there already.  Digital audio software, such as Adobe Audition, brings a multi track recording studio into the classroom for very little money – it could be 300 pounds Sterling or 30 pounds, depending on licences purchased.  Twenty years ago that would require a 250,000 pound studio in the UK to achieve the same product.  Microphones to record basic audio can be bought from UK supermarkets.  Mixed with numerous voices, music, sound effects and clips and we can enter new worlds of communication.  If that is still beyond reach, there is digital editing software in the public domain that can be downloaded, legally, for free and will enable most tasks performed by paid-for software.  Cost is not the issue. Inclusive is absolutely an option and must be a priority.

What can I do with it?

Pick a subject and audio can be used to a greater or lesser degree to transform lessons.

Geography
English
History
Languages
Sports Studies
Technology
Media
Science

Examples

• Geography. Study of volcanoes/earthquakes and the effects. A group of 13 year old students were writing about the effect of an earthquake on a small town by converting their work into a news bulletin. At the end of the lesson, the work was interesting but was still a one dimensional word on a page.  I then took on the group and recorded the bulletin already written with one or two re-writes. 
• Parts were allocated; a newsreader(s) rescuer, victim (s), Mayor of the town, a news jingle was recorded and a bulletin with eyewitness reports came alive.
• French/German. Write and record a rhyme or a existing story line; Pied Piper of Hamlin, record the actor parts in German, change the voice of the ‘mice’ on the software to create a mouse-like voice.
• English.  Write and record a drama/TV soap script.  Started by one team, continued by the next, and so on.
• Sport.  Record a commentary to that race or game.
• History.  Re-enact a period in time and ‘hear’ those involved at the time, the settlers, the Victorian family, the Roman soldiers.
• Modern History. Recreate the 1960s; find clips of the Beatles, fashion designers, man on the moon, and so on.

Who benefits

The ethos of the Audio in Schools model I am proposing will exist to promote success, personalizing learning, creativity, mentoring and innovation.  It will also raise aspirations and aid poor speaking skills that are holding some students back when addressing the job market through poor interview technique, a point emphasised by the UK Chief Inspector of Schools.

The majority of students will benefit from the model I am proposing, but there are key areas that this will help most.

Clearly, gifted and talented students will benefit from the extension opportunities this offers.  They can carry out their own tasks helping others on the way with peer mentoring. There are also considerable cross-over opportunities for them across the curriculum.

Crucially, the disadvantaged and disengaged students stand to gain substantially. Here is one vital point to understand.  Tests I have already carried out with students outside the curriculum, show audio gives them unprecedented opportunity to succeed.  This work may not necessarily focus on any area of the curriculum.  Instead it focuses on them as individuals. They record and hear their voice.  With some additional facilities they can recreate radio programmes in the style and genre they are used to listening to.  They can talk to each other in their language, with their culture, expressing ideas freely that would otherwise be stifled.  They are no longer on the periphery, no longer at the back of the class, no longer excluded from conversation, they are leading and succeeding but someone is giving them the opportunity to be themselves, plus someone else is listening to them.

The learner

So, this project has a number of objectives.  It considers personalisation and the effective learner.

In the model, I am putting forward, students become active in learning, they are participants in the design. Their experience of their popular cultures adds to the subject knowledge gained to create materials they want to develop and share.

The teacher becomes mentor and guide but shares in that learning as new ideas and creativity are developed. The reaction between teacher and student moves into dialogue, rather than an imposed agenda, so it becomes a collaborative process that be modified later by that group or others. In that sense, while personalised, it also can become a group experience.

As previously mentioned some students in an English class could begin writing a soap opera script or radio drama in a UK school.  The audio is then emailed, using one of the high capacity sites like YouSendIt, to a school in Australia or New Zealand. It’s added to there and forwarded to the United States and completed in South Africa. The finished work is uploaded to a website and shared to all.  It’s engaged students across continents picking up multicultural, language and fashionable influences on the way. The classroom, therefore, becomes irrelevant; it’s the shared experience that takes over.  Imagine the power of that level of interaction achievable within a short time span at negligible cost.  Not only have they learned content and style, but culture, problem-solving, speaking and listening, team working, and developed a personal understanding of the learning process and the technology behind that.  Success without necessarily worrying about right and wrong answers. Learning becomes effective in that students continuously monitor their performance and those of others and must consider the resources available to make it happen.  They must be sensitive to need and culture and the range of ability available within the group. They must also be able to demonstrate, either with their own audio contribution, or via email, text or blog the processes to others. They must, of course generate good and effective working relationships across continents to ensure that end product is of the highest quality and retains the original vision and purpose.

The cognitive curriculum is evident; problem solving, analytical thinking, organising information, negotiation, creativity and persistence.  Social skills. Negotiation, listening, small group learning and collaboration.  There may be opportunities to include other members of the community, children and adults, to shape products and contribute – business leaders, community groups and charities. And running through the heart of this is the acceptance and use of emerging technologies to create experiences and provide support; ICT is a major component. The students will build networks, support each other and manage their own progression, in short, they engage in the learning process, no longer asking what will we do today in class, but rather, what do I need to do today to make it happen?

They will also head towards deep learning, not just of a given subject area, but of this process. In purely media terms, a student may know how to open a fader in a radio studio, switch on a mic and record their voice.  That would be shallow learning at that stage.  To take it on though, they need to understand what can be achieved by doing that and move to deep learning.  They assess what they have recorded, negotiate assessment, and grasp the creative process of how to use a microphone to its best advantage, how to modulate the voice, what levels to record at and how and when to introduce outside audio – music and effects.  They understand how long that audio should be on that subject, given the target audience, what ‘sound’ should and could be achieved and when and precisely where they should edit.  These processes move the learner from someone who records audio to someone who creates it. Equally the Geography learner gets a deeper understanding of what it was like to be in that earthquake, to sense the emotion and confusion, even if not directly transferred to that audio product. Choosing and prioritising, creativity and innovation, critical thinking, demonstrating and understanding, design and planning, review and refection; on it goes.  All these points are addressed by careful use of introducing audio into the mix.

The way we do things

While promoting creativity and therefore spontaneity, it is also crucial to provide leadership.  There must be a sense of this is what we do and how we do it and that must be generated from the front.  Standards of behaviour, credibility and quality must be demonstrated by project leaders, be they teachers or project champions.  This will encourage standards, a sense of a base line, and will lead to consistent decision-making.  Respect of those taking part and their level of contribution is integral to that over arching structure.  That sense of structure will encompass and take account of self-awareness, empathy and overall mood.  Those having inter-group problems will not produce worthwhile products but that base level of quality and standard should be adhered to.  If it doesn’t work today, try tomorrow.

Summary

This is not reinventing the classroom or the curriculum. It’s meant to engage and bring learning into the student using a language they already understand.

This is the Playstation/X-Box generation used to quick fixes of information.  In many cases we are currently not addressing their need but sticking to a method of giving information in a way that seems foreign, distant and irrelevant.  This is a process as relevant to the under-12s as to the graduates.  Why continue with a classroom structure more suited to the 20th century than the 21st? 

Even at its most basic and simplistic level, what I am suggesting is a method of teaching, training and learning that is enjoyable; that’s fun to do and take part in. Of course it is not one size fits all.  There will be students that remain unsure, shy of taking part or still see it as just another lesson; but that should not stop us from trying.

Away from the curriculum we will be introducing self confidence and speaking and listening to many students that lack even the most basic attributes. Bright school leavers are not getting the jobs they want because they lack speaking skills at interviews. 

The Chief Inspector of Schools in England says action must be taken now and told the government that verbal communication should be a ‘major part of literacy’. The chief inspector went on to say that this is so often referred to as ‘soft skills,’ but argues that ‘they’re not soft at all … they’re work skills.’

This follows research from Lancaster University which found that children from infants onwards are finding verbal skills increasingly difficult.

Websites, podcasts, listen again, CDs. Workshops delivered in schools, or to a group of students and teachers to train them in the process and advise on affordable equipment.  That initial delivery must then be backed by online support via written or tailored audio emails.  Sustainability is absolutely crucial to the success of this. Training the trainers, then walking away, would be a complete waste of time and disillusion those recently encouraged.  This is a cheap, fast and effective way of bringing the classroom back into a place of collaboration.

What I am suggesting is taking the student from compliant in the process to committed.

Objectives

I am looking for opportunities to create the model above in schools across territories. I would also welcome any opportunity to research the use and effectiveness of using audio to enhance learning and to write on the subject.  My current circumstances do not permit that, so I am actively seeking any consultancy and employment opportunity to make that happen.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mr Mike Kinnaird is a teacher, lecturer and broadcaster.  He was a staff producer with the BBC for 15 years but worked for the corporation on a freelance basis for a further five years.  During that time, he worked on most BBC Local Radio stations and networks.

Mr Kinnaird now teaches media and broadcast in an 11 to 18 school in Lincolnshire, England, and is a part-time lecturer at the University of Lincoln School of Journalism and Department of Media Production. He also contributes audio materials for Chinese schools through the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust iNet programme and has worked on an audio diary project for Professor Jan Robertson, International Development Director, Educational Leadership Centre, at the University of Waikato, in New Zealand. He has also taught in further education, run a number of projects involving multiple schools from primary age upwards, postgraduate and corporate training.  He also had a career in print journalism before broadcasting.

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