Over the last few years, the popularity of podcasts has skyrocketed, and many teachers are introducing audio and video activities in the classroom. For some educators, however, the thought of developing these projects can be intimidating.
But I promise, you don’t need to be the world’s greatest podcaster to make these projects successful.
Since 2011, I have worked with classroom teachers, instructional coaches, and district administrators to implement audio and video projects. They range from simple activities to live morning announcements to full community-based podcasts with professional-looking YouTube channels.
Classroom audio/video projects can take many shapes, but there is always a way to use these projects to enhance learning and give students a chance to tell their stories.
That’s because most of today’s students walk around with a (semi-) professional podcasting studio in their backpacks. Their laptops, tablets, or mobile phones serve as video camera, microphone, and editing equipment.
To get started, try these four simple projects that will engage students of all ages and will meet your core curricular and digital learning standards.
Project 1: One student, one device
One of my favorite starter podcasting projects is to ask students to turn on their Chromebook camera application, hit the record button, and share everything they know about the lesson—which could include a science project, a book report, or any other topic.
You can give students prompts, or have them write a few paragraphs and make a video-recording of themselves reading it. This usually helps students get over stage fright.
Project 2: Two students, one device
Invite two students to sit in front of their camera application and have a simple conversation. This could be a question-and-answer session that is written ahead of time.
They need to capture the “Who, What, Where, Why, and How” of the project. After the lab is over, students edit their work, telling the story of the activity through audio, video, photos, or a fun slide deck.
A variation would be to divide all students into groups of two, and then have them record Q&A sessions on different topics related to your lesson.
At the end of the project, the students have an audio or video study guide that covers the entire chapter of study.
Project 3: Multiple students, one fun experiment
What happens if you have science students engaged in a lab and want to make sure they understand key concepts? You can turn the lab into a wild variation of Kitchen Stadium from the cooking show Top Chef!
Ask one student in each group to act as the documentarian, who will interview the students in their group while the activity is happening.
Project 4: Turn traditional essays into interactive podcasts
One of my favorite activities to do with students is to take a traditional five-paragraph essay and kick it up a notch. The first paragraph gets recorded by the entire group. The three body paragraphs each get recorded by a different student. The last paragraph becomes a closing conversation by the entire group. Learn more about this activity.
Meet Digital Learning Standards
Audio and video projects, like podcasting, meet each of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Digital Learning Standards—a set of seven guidelines.
When we look at either the use of audio and video podcasts in the classroom as a learning tool, or the active creation of audio and video by students to demonstrate knowledge, we can align our lesson activities up with the following ISTE Standards for Students.
1.1 Empowered Learner
When we ask students to take ownership of their learning, we give them a recipe that empowers them to demonstrate knowledge of a topic however they feel comfortable. By empowering them to break down a subject, organize it into a logical sequence and teach it to someone, whether it be through an audio conversation or through a video project, it provides students the opportunity to take ownership of the entire project from beginning to end. They are not bubble fillers, rather they are the ones responsible for others knowledge of the subject and that is an extremely empowering transformation for students.
1.2 Digital Citizen
When we teach students how to be content creators inside our classrooms, we also teach them to prepare for a future of being content creators outside of the classroom. Knowing and understanding that audio and video content, has the ability to be published for a global audience to consume is a powerful lesson and one that has the ability to transform a community both in and out of their school districts.
1.3 Knowledge Constructor
Where most people think about a podcast simply as an audio or video project, the real power of a podcasting project lies in what is commonly referred to as the Show Notes. Not only am I teaching my students how to create a great sounding or amazing looking media project, I am also engaging them in the various ways that an audience searches for and finds their content online. By helping students learn about show notes, you are providing them a platform from which to take their show outline and make it robust enough to have a written component that involves additional notes, links of interest, supplemental resources and so much more.
1.4 Innovative Designer
A great way to introduce educational podcasting to students is through the process of Design Thinking. The ability to develop a question, generate ideas, topics, and research to build the show and finally compose the audio, video, and written components are essential to building a dynamic and engaging activity for students.
1.5 Computational Thinker
If students are developing audio and video content, they are going to be running into a number of roadblocks. Things such as audio levels, A-Roll (the main video), B-Roll (the secondary video), and the art of storytelling all need to be thought about before the recording button gets pushed. The ability for students to breakdown each of these issues into smaller components and develop the techniques to get their project looking and sounding exactly how they want it to sound is imperative to helping students develop their own style for storytelling.
1.6 Creative Communicator
On the surface, students can easily create audio and video podcasting project through the use of their tablets and laptop style devices. They all have cameras and microphones. That’s the easy part. The difficult part is coming up with the story that helps teach the topic. Then going back to refine the story until they finally get it right. For most students, they usually want to record once and get the project turned in, but with a little bit of support, they will soon become effective and creative communicators through the process of recording, listening to, adjusting, and rerecording their final podcasts that are ready to be published and shared.
1.7 Global Collaborator
Remember back in the days when we had pen pals from different school districts write us letters? Why not start a podcasting project the same way? One of the greatest and most heart warming projects I ever did with my students was to invite them to create video shows of themselves reading books that then were shared with our elementary students. We selected a few books, recorded and put a little website together. What my students were not expecting was that the elementary students would do the same back to them. It was a wonderful project that involved multiple levels of the school community. Everyone was a winner!
—Jeff Bradbury is an author, podcaster, and creator of the TeacherCast Educational Network.
Learn More
Are you an affiliate?
