3-12, Creative Thinking, Critical Thinking, Research, Student Products, Teaching Tools

The Big Fib Podcast Planner

One of my most recent workshop additions is one on using podcasting in the classroom. The title is, “From Script to Sound: Engaging Student Learning Through Podcasting.” During this three hour PD, participants learn how to use podcasts as a tool to help with reading and listening comprehension as well as to develop critical thinking skills. In the second half, they learn how to create podcasts using Canva (yes, it can be done!).

One of my favorite ways to start students off with creating in any kind of media is to use a “mentor” piece, whether it’s text, songs, poetry, video, or podcasts. In this case, we use a podcast called, “The Big Fib.” This is one of many productions suitable for kids that you can find on the GZM classroom site, an excellent resource which I blogged about earlier this year.

Choose an episode of the podcast that has a format your students can emulate for a topic you’re teaching. I chose “The Big Fib” because the premise of the show is that two people are being questioned, an expert and a fibber. The listener is supposed to be able to discern from their responses who is the expert and who is the fibber. There is a different topic each time, such as Ancient Egypt. The structure of the show not only supports critical thinking skills, but also easily allows for students to make their own similar podcast on any topic they are studying in class. (Though it’s not part of the GZM family of podcasts, another great “mentor podcast” is, “Smash, Boom, Best,” which you can read more about in this post.)

During the latest workshop, the teachers got to try out using the podcast planner which I’ve made based on “The Big Fib,” and to spend time working in Canva to make their podcasts. We didn’t have time to finish, but they got a good understanding of the steps, and I was completely floored by their creativity! One group chose the show, “Bluey” as their topic (which is apparently an extremely moving show despite being for pre-school kids), another was doing Edgar Allan Poe, and a third group — composed of an art teacher and two language teachers — had come up with a podcast they called, “Just Say It,” where they would ask a question and the two guests were supposed to respond in Spanish (but one would not be responding correctly).

The variety of topics from the teachers made it clear that this is something that could be done as a great assessment tool in most subjects because you could pretty much have students “show what they know” about anything with this activity.

If you’d like to make your own copy of the planning document they used (I made some modifications based on their feedback), click on this link. And, if you’d like to have me do this workshop with a group of teachers in your district, virtually or in-person, drop me a line at terrieichholz@engagetheirminds.com!

Broadcast room
Careers, K-12

New Podcast Dropped!

When Dana Goodier invited me to be on the Out of the Trenches podcast, I almost said, “No, thanks.” This wasn’t a reflection on the podcast, just of my own anxiety. You see, a few years ago I was diagnosed with laryngeal dystonia and my brief celebration after finally getting a name for the strange things my voice has done all my life quickly became a frustrating quest to get the right treatment. There is no cure for this disease, and the most promising treatment is Botox injections in your vocal cords. These aren’t only expensive, but the right dosage varies incredibly and can result in temporary side effects like breathiness and “Minnie-Mouse” voice. Too little can mean that you just paid a lot of money to have a normal voice for 7 days, and too much can mean that you’re sidelined for 3 weeks from talking on the phone or attending raucous parties because no one can hear you.

So, I’ve been getting treatments, and sometimes my voice is great and sometimes I sound like SpongeBob, and sometimes I sound like I just spent the night before screaming at a rock concert. But I went ahead and said, “Yes,” to Dana anyway because I’m kind of done with making every decision based on the predictability of my voice quality.

Our interview was months ago, but the podcast just got posted. Of course, I had to listen to it first so I could decide if I should pretend it didn’t exist (even though odds are good someone would find it anyway) or share the link with you. Like most of you, I expect, I despise the sound of my recorded voice — even when the treatments are working — but I also felt responsible for listening to the episode because I couldn’t remember anything I’d said and I wanted to make sure I didn’t blurt out something stupid that would get me canceled.

Fortunately, my voice is not nearly as annoying as I feared, though it does break in a few parts. And I managed to not say anything super controversial, thanks to Dana being a great host who prepared me well. You can listen to the episode here if you want to judge for yourself.

Even if my particular episode isn’t your jam, Dana has a perfectly wonderful podcast voice, which you may want to listen to in one of her many other Out of the Trenches episodes. The podcast, and Dana’s book, are all about the resilience of educators. You can learn about obstacles they’ve faced and overcome, and advice they would give to others. One thing that I know I learned as a teacher (which I share during the interview) is to be less pig-headed and actually consider what experienced teachers have to say. If it wasn’t for one of those sage mentors, my teaching career would have ended after 8 years instead of 29. So, give yourself the gift of some positive, but practical, advice to drown out all of the hate that seems to be aimed at this profession right now.

By the way, though being on podcasts stresses me out, I love helping students to create them! I offering a new workshop this year for teachers of grades 6-12 called, From Script to Sound:  Engaging Student Learning through Podcasting. Contact me if you’re interested! terrieichholz@engagetheirminds.com     

selective focus photography of gray stainless steel condenser microphone
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3-5, 5-8, Language Arts, Reading, Teaching Tools, Writing

Podcast Resources from GZM Classroom

Gen-Z Media (GZM) creates podcasts designed for all ages, and they’ve just published a website, GZM Classroom, with educational resources for grades 3-8 that can be used with their programs. Those of you who have used Hyperdocs will be pleased to know that the resources have been designed by the two co-creators of Hyperdocs, Sarah Landis and Lisa Highfill, and are just as engaging and innovative as we’ve seen in the past.

Before you dismiss podcasts as a waste of time in your classroom, ask yourself how many times you’ve had to repeat something to a student who “wasn’t listening.” It’s pretty clear that listening skills are vital, and cultivating them shouldn’t be considered irrelevant to learning. In addition, podcasts can teach comprehension and they are pre-recorded so students can listen to them several times if needed to develop better understanding. Each podcast on the GZM site also has a list of standards that are addressed, many of them including reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills in the student materials. For more on “Why You Should Bring Podcasts into the Classroom,” check out this Cult of Pedagogy article.

You’ll find a good overview of each podcast series, genres, themes, average episode length, summaries, and more on the Classroom Resources page. Once you choose a series, the “Get Started button” under the summary will take you the series page, where you will find all of the resources as well as links to the series episodes. Each series has a listening guide (both digital and printable versions available), a choice board, and an explore board as well as explanations for how to use the materials with your students.

If you’re just starting out with using podcasts with students, I would recommend beginning with Six Minutes, as each episode is (shockingly) six minutes long. There is also a Spanish version of the podcast and the listening guide.

I’ve heard a lot of great things about The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel – and the fact that there are three seasons of this show plus that it’s won several awards should be indications of its power to keep students listening.

Another series that probably all of us should listen to is The Big Fib, also an award winner. It’s a game show in which each episode features a kid who questions two “experts” on a specific topic and must try to get to the bottom of who is telling the truth and who is, well, the Big Fibber.

Almost two years ago I wrote an article called, “Podcast Pedagogy” for NEO, and it amazes me to read it now and think of all of the new resources that I could add. Whether you want to use podcasts in centers or whole group, or for developing listening and comprehension or inspiring creative writing, there are plenty of options, and GZM Classroom has just given you access to an incredible number of free quality materials to help you do it.

kids listening to music using headphones while sitting on a wooden flooring
Photo by PNW Production on Pexels.com
positive black woman talking to radio host
history, Independent Study, K-12, Research, Teaching Tools, Writing

International Podcast Day

So, I’m in the middle of curating resources for my September Holidays and Celebrations Wakelet collection (still working on it, but it is public if you want to take a look), and I found out that September 30th is International Podcast Day. Have I mentioned that I love podcasts, and that there are so many ways to leverage them for engagement in the classroom? I even wrote an article about “Podcast Pedagogy” last year for NEO. Whether you want to have students listen to podcasts (see my article for tons of suggestions, including Smash, Boom, Best) or create them, podcasts are a nice way to give students opportunities for more choice and creativity in their learning and assessments.

I discovered a couple of new resources since I wrote that article that I am adding to my September Wakelet, but I’ll also include here. First of all, I saw this nice idea for a podcast listening station from Stacy Brown (@21stStacy) on Twitter:

Also from Twitter, Chris Hitchcock (@CHitch94), shared this spreadsheet of podcasts that relate to history to use with secondary students.

If you’re looking for ways to celebrate International Podcast Day, this page has good suggestions. I realize that it’s over a month away, but these are activities you definitely you want to plan ahead of time rather than the night before.

This page from Building Book Love has excellent recommendations for podcasts for both elementary and secondary. There are also links to some TPT pages the author has created for listening and responding to podcasts.

There are a few other links on my Wakelet if you want to delve deeper. If you haven’t tried using podcasts yet, I hope that you will take the leap because they are definitely a valuable educational resource that I think has been largely untapped so far!

camping tent on grass lawn
K-5, Science

Camp WeWow

I recently authored an article for NEO about using podcasts in the classroom, but that certainly isn’t the only place educational podcasts can be enjoyed. One podcast for kids and adults to listen to together, Wow in the World, is embarking on a special summer edition beginning next week. On June 14th, the podcast will begin streaming daily through the end of July. Each week will have a theme and the episodes will encourage interactivity with STEM projects and “bonkerball antics galore!” Click here to find out more about Camp WeWow, and mark your calendars for this summer (or winter – depending on which part of the world you live in!) activity the entire family can enjoy.

family of four walking at the street
Photo by Emma Bauso on Pexels.com
black woman in earphones listening to music and texting message
Creative Thinking, Critical Thinking, K-12, Language Arts

Podcast Pedagogy

In my latest post for NEO, “Podcast Pedagogy: Leveraging Audio Programs for Learning,” I talk all about the power of podcasts in the classroom – listening and responding to them, as well as creating them. This industry has really become popular in the last few years, and there are so many free materials out there that you and your students can take advantage of for learning and creativity. One fun new app that I mention in the article is “That Part,” which I have enjoyed using to save snippets of podcasts that I want to remember. It’s currently in beta, so there is a glitch every now and then, but it has been great to just take a screenshot of a podcast while I’m walking my dog, and using the app later on to share out the moments of inspiration I think family and friends will appreciate. One resource I don’t share in the article (because I discovered it after the article was submitted) is this awesome free podcasting template from SlidesMania.

If you’d like to catch up on my previous articles for NEO, here’s the list: Six Ways to Support Spatial Reasoning Skills Online, Let’s Talk a Good Game: Mining Talk Shows for Classroom Engagement Ideas, How to Do More with Less Screen TimeHow to Facilitate Meaningful Discussions in Hybrid or Virtual ClassroomsTop Ed Tech Tools for DifferentiationFrom Normal to Better: Using What We’ve Learned to Improve EducationApplying Universal Design for Learning in Remote ClassroomsHow Distance Learning Fosters Global CollaborationHow to Use Design Thinking in the Classroom, and How to S.T.E.A.M. Up Distance Learning.

black and blue corded headphones
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