So I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about both Podcasting and Vodcasting and trying to come up with fun ways of using them in a library setting with teens. I have come up with one idea in particular that I am very excited about and I hope that sometime I will be in a position to make it happen. Although I suppose I need to explain a few things for those of you out there who may have no idea what I am talking about. Podcasting is simply the act of creating audio media, or in the case of Vodcasting, video, and putting it on the internet so it can be downloaded to an MP3 player or some other device so they can be viewed or listened. For more info on that take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting.
Any way, my idea involves the use of a really interesting book called Seek, by Paul Fleischman, which I will describe in more detail in the review section. Pauls website http://www.paulfleischman.net/works.htm gives us a good short description of the book. ” Assigned to write his autobiography, Rob “listens back” over his life. That symphony of words comprises Seek, delivered by a chorus of 52 speakers–from relatives to baseball announcers to Rob’s absent DJ father, a man he’s spent his life pursuing through the labyrinth of the airwaves. A sound portrait both compelling and comic, presented entirely in dialogue.” This book is written in the form of a radio play and at the end Paul gives instructions that would help you read through it as a grouped and create a radio, or audio play of it.
This is where my idea comes in. I loved this book, and especially loved the audio portion of it. It is a book which is meant to be read aloud, and with a group of people. So why not get a group of people, in this case teens, together and record a reading of this book. It is a fun book, and it would be an interesting experiment to try to create our own audio book. Obviously this would require the library to have some sort of recording device and possibly some audio editing equipment on the computer. But with the required equipment this could be a very fun activity. Not only that but depending on what copyright issues are, it is possible we could create this audio book and then include it as part of the collection, which would really help the kids feel like they are a part of the library.
