Give Your Students A Voice: Podcast
You will be surprised at how quickly your students learn the skills and start producing some amazing and authentic learning podcasts.
How can you engage your students in the classroom? Podcasting is one way to do this. Podcasts are a great tool because they can be used in any class and are not limited by time or space. They allow students to express themselves while also being creative, which is an important skill for future success. If you are looking into using podcasts as a teaching tool, here’s what you need to know on how to get started!
There are three phrases that I used as a classroom teacher and still use today in my current role as an Instructional Technologist.
- Keep it Simple
- If it’s Free, it’s for Me.
- Improvise, Adapt and Overcome
You may start seeing where I am going with these but let us explore how these 3 phrases can help you successfully integrate podcasting in your classroom.
Keep it Simple
Podcasting has been around for years, but before it seemed like it was only for an elite club of people that had all the fancy mics, software, and such, but not anymore. Today all that you really need is a mobile device, Chromebook, or a laptop, which are now commonplace in most classrooms. All these devices have a decent quality built-in microphone that will allow your students to clearly record their voice.
If It’s Free It’s for Me
Podcasting is free, which makes this opportunity more accessible to everyone. You can use the following platforms to help your students record audio. If you do not want to worry about creating accounts through podcast services or because this may be an issue with your administrators, don’t worry, there’s an app or platform that can help.
- Voice Memo app on iOS or Android Device
- 123apps.com
- Audacity
One thing to make a note of is that Audacity does not work with a Chromebook and does not have a mobile app, this would be best used on a Windows laptop or desktop, but it works great. Once your audio is set you can save it to your Google Drive and upload it to the Google Slide Template provided by edtechteacher.com.
You are not limited to the apps above because there are some great platforms that offer Freemium access such as:
- Soundtrap
- WeVideo (offers some great video features also)
- Screencastify (allows you to download audio)
These platforms are easy to use and can help your students get started on their podcasting adventure.
Improvise, Adapt and Overcome
Although you may not feel comfortable yet … yet, there will be some mistakes that will happen along the way, but don’t get discouraged and you and your students just need to “Get Clicky with It.” Start off with one platform and allow students to experiment with others and you will be surprised at how quickly your students learn the skills and start producing some amazing and authentic learning podcasts.
Now that you know the basics of how to start a classroom podcast, it is time for you and your students to have some fun. Assembling these podcasts is a great way to encourage discussion in the classroom or even outside of school hours. It also helps with writing skills by teaching kids about different types of formats, such as scripts versus interviews.
The possibilities are endless when creating these audio stories! What do you think? Have I sparked any ideas for what type of content your classroom should be sharing on their new podcast? Give us some feedback if you found this helpful.
You can check out my podcast page at www.myedtech.life
