Podagogia della fiaba: un’esperienza di laboratorio online per insegnanti in formazione

After an initial experiment made necessary by the anti-Covid health regulations which proved particularly effective, for the A.Y. 2021-22, one of the mandatory laboratories linked to the teaching of Artistic Education and Media Education was carried out completely remotely, in synchronous mode (6 hours) on the zoom platform and in a-synchronous (6 hours) with feedback in a dedicated forum on moodle. The contents and practical needs of the workshop, focused on the creation of a podcast, proved to be particularly suitable. Synchronous lessons allowed to effectively share onscreen examples of: educational podcasts; practical instructions and format for writing the script and for practicing with the open source software (Audacity) for recording and mixing sounds. It was also possible to refer to the free online repositories for downloading audio tracks; conduct diction and orthoepic exercises and give indications to face the most common dyslalias, own and in their future students. The asynchronous hours were given by the students to those activities that required times, places, instrumentation and operating methods that were not feasible in groups and in person. Such as: vocal exercises; dramatized reading; recording in a soundproof environment. The activities were carried out by each student in the most favorable place and time, using his own computer and microphone. The goal of the workshop was to provide knowledge and skills to design and build a podcast with nursery and primary school students. A technological evolution of the radio format, the podcast also represents a declination of digital storytelling, with all the positive educational effects now expressed in a vast scientific literature. The focus on voice, sounds, and noises also means enriching learning modes for other senses besides sight. Creating a podcast is an exercise of “translation” from the visual-written to the verbal, from the denoted to the connotation, which affects at the lexical (with its extension), grammatical, logical levels. Talking on the microphone can promote self-perception, increase self-esteem by conquering shyness, and prepare one for public speaking. The necessary teamwork brings out soft skills, concentration, dialogue. Practicing one’s own voice (intonation, rhythm, pauses, expository clarity) is also a useful exercise for the teachers themselves, for whom speech is one of the main means of communication with the students. The task entrusted was the reduction of a fairy tale of the brothers Grimm, The fisherman and his wife, on the one hand because the fairy tale constitutes a format at the time more “simple” and complete from the productive point of view, on the other because it is one of the most useful and used formats in nursery and primary school. The choice of giving a single text for all (6) groups responded to the need to explore the multiple forms in which it could be adapted from a dramatic and acoustic point of view (with prevalence of noise and marine contexts, sharing a place-based experience with the parallel course of Geography) and on the other to allow a constructive and enriching comparison between the different narrative solutions adopted by each group. During the workshop, the students, divided into small groups, distributed the tasks based on their aptitudes, but they always shared the final choices, both technical and content/aesthetic. In addition to the moodle page, with dedicated forums and folders for sharing files, the groups that desired had “devoted rooms” available to work together on the zoom platform, others chose other types of “smart” solutions (video calls, whatsapp, etc.). The last portion of synchronous hours was dedicated to the creation of a podcast channel in the Spreaker RSS aggregator, to uploading the “illustrated cover” of each podcast produced, to listen all podcasts and peer reviewing them through a rubric created and shared with the teacher. The synchronous-asynchronous distance formula of this workshop has specifically addressed students already working as substitute teachers and, from the results and feedback received, has in fact allowed them to integrate school time with that of training and self-training.