Podcasting in the classroom?!

 

Hello everyone and welcome to another blog post! Today I'm diving into the innovative waters of podcasting! You might be wondering what podcasts have to do with teaching in the classroom or library, so I'm here to tell you there's a whole wide world of technology you can tap into. 

In an article from the ASCD website, Mike Yakubovsky writes, "A recent LinkedIn study identified the top 10 skills employers are looking for in their interns and new hires (Hess, 2019). I looked through it all, and nowhere was there a reference to test-taking ability. What was at the top of the list were soft skills like collaboration, time management, and creativity and hard skills like analytical reasoning and people management." I think as educators, most of us would agree that these are important skills that we want to instill in our students. We would also agree that employers don't really care much for test scores as much as school districts do. The real question lies in reality. How do we teach our students collaboration, creativity, and time management skills? The article by Mike Yakubovsky actually talks about how having students create podcasts is one way to incorporate those skills within any curriculum content.

So what are some actual ways to use podcasts in your classroom? Here are some that I thought of:

-Inquiry based learning-students can get into groups based on topics they choose and as they work through the research steps, they can produce small podcast episodes, or the podcast episode can be the final product. This would be a long-term project that would require students to collaborate, research, manage their time, and get creative. 

-You can create a short-term project where students create a podcast individually or with a partner or group as an end product of a unit of study. Students can listen to podcasts (vetted by teachers!) and use them for a variety of exercises, such as research, comparisons, or analysis. In fact, a few years ago I did a unit in my ELAR class where students listened to a mystery podcast, did character analysis, wrote an essay, participated in a Socrative seminar, and worked collaboratively to create Flip Grid videos on solving the mystery. 

Unfortunately, you're going to run into some issues with podcasts if you haven't done your homework, literally. If students are ever going to listen to a podcast for you, it's always important to listen to it first to make sure it's okay to use in the classroom. Not all podcasts are for students of all ages; you have to find appropriate ones for the elementary level and so on. 
 
Now having students create podcasts, or even creating them yourself requires a little bit of research. You have to find a hosting site to upload your recording, and there are quite a few sites out there. I looked into a couple, and here is what I learned. 

Creating your own podcasts

Buzzsprout

Buzzsprout's biggest plus is that it's free. So for new podcasters, this is a positive.  But with the free account, you can post two hours of content a month. There are paid plans that allow you more content time. Unfortunately, Buzzsprout only keeps episodes for 90 days, so you can't really create an episode list and archive of past episodes. This might be helpful if your students on working on a long-term project where the podcast episode is a final product. They would only need one episode, and once it's graded, and people have had a chance to listen, it's okay if it's gone. 

Anchor

Anchor is part of the Spotify brand, and it's another free podcasting hosting site. This one does not have any paid plans. It's totally free. The cool thing about this one that was different from Buzzsprout is that it allows you to record on the site, whereas Buzzsprout required you to record elsewhere and upload the file. Because it's part of Spotify, Anchor is able to let you add songs from the music streaming app. Another cool feature is to add listener messages to your episode. You can share a link where listeners can record messages to you, and you can add those to an episode. The one negative is that you can only create one podcast. 

Podbean

Now, my partner and I chose Podbean to record and host our example podcast. At first, I was not going to use it because the website does not let you record on it, but I downloaded the app, which does have that option. There is a free account and upgrades if you pay. It's very simple to use, and it allows five hours of audio per month. 

Now before I let everyone listen to the podcast episode I recorded with my partner, Marlee. I have to recommend one school librarian podcast. I discovered this one during my research, and have already started listening to it. Check it out: School Librarians United.

One more thing. Here is the article that I quoted above:

http://www.ascd.org/el/articles/handing-students-the-mic-podcasting-to-increase-engagement?utm_campaign=1519-hs&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ascdexpress

Now without further ado, here is the rudimentary podcast I created with my partner. Excuse the mistake in the beginning. I tried cutting it out during editing and had some trouble.