Speaker 1: Hey guys, today we are back with another podcast and we will be talking about laughter. I'm here with Niamh. Now, Niamh, what was your first memory of laughter? I always have this

Speaker 2: like fond memory of, you know the film Elf? Yeah. Where Buddy is in like one of them spinny door tings and like. Oh yeah, I remember that. So, they're spinning around and he's going or laughing. Sorry, that sounded like a crying cow. Yeah. That just makes me laugh all the time. I just like to smile. Smiling is my favorite. That film is really funny. Next, when was the first time you felt laughed at? Well, it was a sad moment. I was in primary school. The teacher had a little competition going on and it was singing. Oh, we've all been there. This is going to pick the winner to have that solo for the song and as if you know, Eagles, Hotel California. Yeah, yeah. Well, my confidence, I was like, yeah, I got this thing, I got this thing. So, I start busting out singing in front of the class and that point when I got up and sung, people were laughing out loud with their eyes. You know when, like people won't laugh, you can kind of see when people are laughing. Yeah. So, whatever, I started singing and then

Speaker 1: people are just looking at me like ghosts. Yeah, it's true. Like even, we didn't have masks then, but they like, it just felt like people are laughing with their eyes. Oh, yeah. When you just, you just see it, you know, but like they're not actually saying it out loud. That's one of the worst moments because you know, they're going to laugh about it later on. So, just a quick run

Speaker 3: through of how they put the podcast together. So, there's three main parts. The first part is writing a script. The second part is recording the speaking part and the third part is any editing that needs to be done. So, maybe any mistakes that were made, adding in sound effects and then adding in the background music. So, I'm back again in my Soundtrap and I'm entering my studio as before with the Purple+. And this time we're going to explore the podcast option. So, if you click on the podcast option, what you'll see is a very similar screen, but we have a few differences here. So, we still have our loops, add new track and import file and invite our friend, but we have two new features that we can use here. So, the first one is transcribe the voice tracks. So, if you click on that, what that will do is you can see in writing what the students are saying. So, maybe if you didn't have time to listen to the students podcast, you could read what they have said. So, interview a guest is another option. And what that does is it makes a phone call to a guest. So, for example, if you're interviewing somebody for your podcast, you can share the link with them, copy the link, send it to them and it acts just like Zoom and it records straight into Soundtrap. Now, this mightn't be appropriate for TUIs, but maybe it could be used in a sixth year or an LCA class, depending on your school policy. So, something else that you might notice is a little bit different is instead of having our bar numbers up here, what we have are timestamps. So, 0, 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 15, etc. So, that can come in useful when you're recording your podcast. So, now I want to take you back to the completed podcast and just run through a few features with you. So, just so you can see it more clearly on your screen, I'm going to zoom in. You can do that from clicking down the bottom of your screen, like so. Here we go. So, I have arranged everything in order. There's my introduction, so the backing track, my introduction. This red section here are all the voice recordings. This purple section is that clip from Elf. And again, another purple section here is the Hotel California clip. The pink section is my backing music that plays the whole way through the podcast. And then I have my outro section. So, that's the two girls saying goodbye. And then just a little bit of outro music to finish it off as well. So, to start with the intro backing, these girls had never done music before, so they actually got their backing track off YouTube. But an option for your students would be to get them to compose their own backing music. And again, that's adding an extra layer or an extra idea that you can include in your classroom. So, we have our intro here, which they just took from this main backing track. So, just to play that again to remind you. So, what they have done next is they fade that out

Speaker 1: and in comes the first piece of speaking. Hey guys, today we are back with another podcast

Speaker 3: and we will be talking about laughter. So, you can also notice that what's going on underneath is that pink background music, which has been turned down so that the voice is really clear and that the backing music is just acting as backing music. So, to have a look at the voice recording section, which is this red section here. Now, most students used the voice recording app on their phones or voice memo app, but we have since discovered as a team that it's much easier to actually download SignTrap onto your phone as an app and you can record directly into the program. This saves a lot of time as some phones don't record in the correct format and you end up having to convert them for the students. So, a top tip would be to get the students to use SignTrap to record directly from their phones. So, you might notice as well and wonder what these little white gaps are. So, what they are is where some edits have taken place. So, for example, in this first one we see Niamh, she just took a few seconds to start speaking, which upset the flow of the podcast. So, instead of starting from scratch and re-recording, that can simply be edited out and the video of how to do little bits like that along with how to record directly into SignTrap from your phone will be available on Skullnet after tonight. So, students were asked to make further edits to the podcast and these two girls decided to add some sound effects. So, the first one we hear is a quote from the movie Elf, which Niamh spoke about being a scene that makes her laugh. So, you can see that here on the purple section and it has been renamed Clip from Elf.

Speaker 1: I just like to smile, smiling is my favourite. That film is really funny.

Speaker 3: And then further on, they included a snippet of Hotel California, which allowed the listeners further insight into what they were discussing.

Speaker 2: Hotel California. Welcome to the Hotel California. Yeah.

Speaker 3: Adding these effects really polishes the podcast and gives it a professional feel. To finish up their podcast, they said their goodbyes and then they used the same intro section as their outro section and faded that out to finish.

Speaker 1: That is all we have time for, for today. So, thank you, Niamh, for coming in and talking to me. I appreciate it. It was really funny as well. Bye.