Comments on: Grade 6 Radio Drama Unit

By: pmacoun

pmacoun — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 19:13:07 +0000

@Nick Thanks bringing me up to speed about Foley techniques. Now I will sound like I know what I am talking about

@Ruth Thanks for visiting.

@Errin Our previous conversation about creativity was bouncing around in my head during this entire unit.

By: Errin

Errin — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 16:40:44 +0000

Hi Phil,
Very neat unit! I’m sure the kids loved it! I completely agree with the fact that you have to try to anticipate all technical hurdles beforehand – it’s proactive classroom management for the tech classroom.

By: Ruth Fleet

Ruth Fleet — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 13:45:36 +0000

Love this idea and your blog!

By: Nicholas FitzGerald

Nicholas FitzGerald — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:19:42 +0000

Foley is just a fancy word for creating sound effects in post-production. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_(film_production)

What I meant is that we made our own sound effect by using props. Like for instance we made footsteps by getting a clicky pair of high-heels and walking them on a concrete floor, and we got the sound of breaking glass by smashing a mason jar in a pillow case etc. All good fun!

By: pmacoun

pmacoun — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:43:03 +0000

Hi Claire,

The eeepcs I have are the 700 model and my main reason for getting them was the price. I think they are great and they are working well but they do have some downsides: the screen is really small; the keyboard is small but manageable; they only have 512 Mb Ram (which hasn’t been a problem so far but I think the lack of RAM might have been a reason for some of the glitches we faced with this unit). I am running the Xubuntu linux operating system on them and I think the slight differences with Windows might have also been responsible for some of my difficulties.

I hope to get more netbooks for our school, but I am currently looking at the Dell Mini with Windows XP on it. James McConville of CUEBC has also done a bunch of research on netbooks and he seems to favour the Acer Aspire One:

http://jamesmcconville.blogspot.com/2009/03/perfect-student-computer-part-iii.html

There also seems to be a lot of buzz around the Lenovo S10 (http://betch.edublogs.org/2009/03/16/420/), although I’m not sure we can ge them in Canada.

By: pmacoun

pmacoun — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:28:15 +0000

Hi Nick,

I have to ask … what is a foley technique?

By: Claire Thompson

Claire Thompson — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 06:41:42 +0000

Phil, thanks for sharing this project; it sounds amazing! It’s great that you’ve outlined the project and what you would do differently. This is a wonderful resource.

On a different note. I’m thinking about lobbying for eeePCs for my class; what has your experience been with them? Do the students find them straightforward to use? Thanks!

By: Nicholas FitzGerald

Nicholas FitzGerald — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 04:18:37 +0000

Haha, I remember doing a similar project in Grade 8 or so. We did a Monty-Python Style version of Cinderella. It was so much fun – definitely a memorable project. We had a great time making the sound-effects with foley techniques. (Incidentally, while all the other groups were messing around with tape recorders I got my group to use Audacity )