Techy Tip: Use Any Book For Your Listen To Reading Center!

When starting the Daily 5 this year, I was mostly concerned about the Listen to Reading part of the Daily 5. I don't have many books on tape or CD. No worries! I quickly remembered that I can easily record any book I want and put them on our class iPods!

This is a tutorial on how to use GarageBand to record a story and send to iTunes. I'm using a Mac. It's so so simple!

First open up GarageBand and select Podcast.

Next, give your project a name --- most likely the title of the book you are reading.

Once GarageBand opens, click on either Male or Female voice. To record your story, click the red recording button. I do ring a little bell to signal students to turn the page. To stop recording, click the spacebar.

This is what it will look like after you record your story.

Now you are going to want to add the cover of the book to the podcast. Go to Google Images and find the cover of the book you read. Click and drag the picture to the Podcast Track in GarageBand as shown. *The reason I bother to put the cover into the podcast is because it will show up on the iPod. This tells students they are listening to the correct book.

Make sure your audio of the recording and the length of your cover image match up. If you need to adjust, just click and drag to adjust the length of the image.

Now, you are ready to send this podcast to iTunes! At the top, click Share, then Send Podcast to iTunes.

Your podcast will automatically open up in iTunes. From there, you can connect your iPod and put the story that you recorded onto the iPod.

I especially love this because I can give students directions prior to reading and instructions on what to do at the end when they are finished! Plus, I'm no longer tied down to just the books that I have on tape! I can turn any book into one that can be used at a listening center!

Hope this inspires you to give it a try! Let me know how it goes!