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Digital audio - podcast

This digital audio is an indipendente activity, part of a training course for the language teachers at the Studio Italia Language School, private linguistic institution in Budapest, Hungary. The general aim of this course for teachers is to correctly use the new Electronic register, recently implemented by the school. The learning goal of the following audio is to be able to structure the language classes based on a balanced equilibrium between Language Learning and Language Acquisition. The audio explains the difference between these 2 fundamental elements of the general process of learning a new language. More information about the course can be found in the Instructional Design Document in the 200X section.

To get to publishing this digital audio as a YouTube video I went through several steps:

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  • I wrote the text of the audio material;

  • I recorded the reading of the text through a site that offers AI voices services (https://play.ht);

  • I downloaded the file in Mp3 format;

  • I combined text and image going from Mp3 format to Mp4 format (https://www.fileconverto.com);

  • I polished the video to Mp4 through iMovie;

  • I uploaded the resulting video to YouTube;

  • I added and corrected the closed captions and the transcript;

  • I finally published the digital audio.

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I have chosen to use these resources with the personal learning goal of gaining experience with as many tools as possible. In particular, I was interested in taking care of the writing phase of a script and subsequently the use of artificial intelligence for reading the written text. That is from text to speech. In this way I learned fundamental lessons, including the importance in the design and writing of the initial script, which is the material from which the whole process of building the didactic material starts and around which it evolves. I also want to underline the importance of punctuation in writing the script, especially if read by an artificial reader. Punctuation ensures that the pauses and intonation of sentences are respected, and is essential to make the artificial voice as realistic as possible.

It was then also instructive to transform MP3 files into MP4 files, in order to make digital audio compatible with valid formats on YouTube. This work required the creation of a cover image using Canva and the fusion of the two elements (audio element and visual element) in a single file. Finally I chose to upload the file to YouTube due to the possibility of inserting precise and effective closed captions, which make the learning experience much more usable for all types of learners.

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