USING AUDIO FILES TO TEACH HISTORY IN HIGH SCHOOL



USING AUDIO FILES TO TEACH HISTORY IN HIGH SCHOOL

Using Audio Files to Teach History in High School

Aaron Phelps

Honors Educational Technology Class

Effective Audio/Visual Clips in the High School History Classroom

As with any form of technology integration in the classroom, multimedia comes with both pros and cons. Audio allows history students to hear what is meant, for example, by what is printed in a text book about a composer’s style. Rather than just read speeches by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, students can see how his effective oration gained him such sweeping support. Unfortunately, preparing audio clips can be a time consuming process and teachers need to be aware of copyright issues. With practice, though, high school social studies teachers can use Power Point and low-tech methods effectively to integrate audio into their lessons and reach students in different ways.

M. D. Roblyer, author of the text book “Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching,” tends to focus on expensive software or hardware and time-consuming technology activities, but she also recognizes the importance of lower-tech possibilities like audio files and images. One of her suggestions for social studies teachers is digital storytelling, where students use audio files and pictures for both research and presentation. She feels that digital storytelling projects allow students to get closer to their academic research (Roblyer 2006). While Roblyer champions the use of audio technology in the classroom, she stresses the importance of making sure that all students, including students with hearing disabilities, can experience and learn from varied instruction.

When planning a lesson using auditory features, teachers need to make sure deaf students are not left behind because of their disability. Roblyer states that while deaf students have few problems with most technologies, “one problematic area involves the use of audio feedback… and the reliance on sound in multimedia software” (Roblyer, 2006, p. 419). If an American Sign Language interpreter is present in the room, teachers should let them know about any audio aspects of the class in advance so they are prepared to interpret for the student(s). If no interpreter is present, the teacher should give deaf students hand-outs of lyrics for songs and transcripts of speeches, debates, and news stories. Teachers have the responsibility of reaching as many students as possible, regardless of their abilities and disabilities.

In her article from The History Teacher entitled “Popular Culture in the Classroom: Using Audio and Video Clips to Enhance Survey Classes”, Dr. Sandy Hoover discusses how she used three types of both audio and visual clips in the American history survey courses at Texas Tech University. Dr. Hoover’s audio clips broke down into primary sources, popular songs whose name or the name of the band was related to the lecture, or popular songs that had content similar to the classroom topic. By observing students’ reactions, Hoover (2006) found that, to break up lecture, an audio clip as short as ten seconds is the best option. I disagree with her use of popular music clips just to get students interested in her lectures. Trying to tie in popular media into a history lecture is going to confuse a number of students who will not see the connection as fast as their peers. When Hoover suggests at the end that popular clips are really no different than an instructor’s anecdotes, I see the use of these files as slightly more justified. Teachers, however, need to be aware of the preparation time it will take to find, review, and integrate multimedia into their Power Points and lectures.

Donna M. Binkierwicz at California State University at Longbeach uses primary source audio files in her classrooms to bring students closer to cultures of the past. For example, she plays a song that was a reaction to women’s suffrage from the 1920s at the beginning of class to introduce students to a social ideology of some men. Songs can also be used as a transition to a new topic or to reinforce a point mid-lecture. Lyrics should be handed out or projected to involve more senses at once. Binkierwicz (2006) suggests using a wide variety of musical genres to emphasize developments in music history. By having a musical timeline of sorts to go along with historical and social facts, students will better understand different cultures and, more importantly, changes in cultures over time.

Music brings to life the American Civil War and gives students a frame of reference for culture in Lynn Waller’s 5th grade classroom. While she never goes into how she plays the music (CD player, media player, PPT), she indicates that music should never be left out of any discussion of culture. Like Binkierwicz, Waller and Edgington use period songs at the beginning of new topics as an introduction and throughout lessons to give students further insight into cultures long past. The fact that a 5th grade teacher and a college professor both use music in the same manner suggests the universal power of music in social studies education. Waller and Edgington emphasize music’s unique ability to help “students connect emotionally with the people of the Civil War and that emotional connection moves the events of those years from the pages to the students’ realm of knowledge” (Waller & Edgington, 2001, p. 148). Students are required to think analytically about the songs they hear and determine how they fit into the framework of facts they learn in class and from their text book. Since music is such an important part of our lives, it is successful way to make history come alive for students.

As they increase in popularity and decrease in price, more and more students are familiar with the basic functions of iPods. While most owners use their iPods to play their favorite music and videos, the handheld multimedia marvels have potential in academics as well. At Georgia College and State University, Deborah L. Vess effectively integrated iPods into her eight person graduate level course in history research methods. Students were all outfitted at the beginning of the course with picture iPods and Griffin iTalk microphones so students could record their oral presentations and then email the files to the instructor. Vess also created (with a freeware program for Macs called Chaptertoolme) enhanced Podcasts that had pictures which students had to listen to prior to the next class period. Students also used their iTalks to record interviews for an oral-history project. Given a survey at the end of the semester, students responded that “the iPod helped to develop greater confidence in their oral skills, especially in front of the class” (Vess, 2006, p. 486). While most students found the iPods to be extremely effective as a learning tool by the end of the semester, students had a hard time at first working with some of the more complicated functions like file saving, transferring and using notes, and recording. While this model of iPod and iTunes integration is impractical at the high school level, iTunes can still be useful for playing audio clips in class. Podcasts from several different news sources allows students to see current events from different points of view.

While history teachers may be limited in technology resources available to them, audio technologies remain one of the most effective techniques to reach students with multimedia. Whether played on a CD player, a computer’s media player, or integrated into a PPT, audio clips give students special insight into history that teachers and textbooks cannot reach alone.

References

Binkiewicz, D. (2006). Tunes of the Times: Historical Songs as Pedagogy for Recent

US History. History Teacher, 39(4), 515-520. Retrieved Thursday, April 19,

2007 from the Professional Development Collection database.

Hoover, D. (2006). Popular Culture in the Classroom: Using Audio and Video Clips to

Enhance Survey Classes. History Teacher, 39(4), 467-478. Retrieved

Thursday, April 19, 2007 from the Professional Development Collection

database.

Roblyer. M. D. (2001). Integrating educational technology into teaching. Upper

Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Vess, D. (2006). History to Go: Why iTeach with iPods. History Teacher, 39(4), 479-

492. Retrieved Thursday, April 19, 2007 from the Professional Development

Collection database.

Waller, L., & Edgington, W. (2001). Using Songs to Help Teach the Civil War. Social Studies, 92(4), 147. Retrieved Monday, April 23, 2007 from the Professional Development Collection database.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download