EDTC 6431 - Student Expression, Creativity & Innovation (ISTE 1)

ISTE 1 - “Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.” 

My Module 1 Triggering Question: Which tools and procedures are best for recording, editing and sharing student-created podcasts? 

My research has helped me discover a gap in my triggering question. I recognize now that I may have been putting the cart before the horse where recording and production are concerned. That is, well before students are ready to record, edit or publish their masterpieces, they need to familiarize themselves with the medium and deliberately work on the pre-production elements of script writing, editing, reading aloud, and generally understanding the medium. Podcasting is not just talking into a microphone and demands deliberate planning and forethought.

Teacher Tony Vincent warns about the pre-production demands that both student and teacher may be unaware of saying "I've found that pre-production takes over three-quarters of the time to produce a podcast" (2008). He offers helpful reminders to students about determining exactly who their intended audience is and to make careful considerations where language and style are concerned.

Vincent also suggests that writing and recording the introduction last ensures that it reflects a concise teaser for the podcast that follows. This not only mirrors the styles of radio and television, it also mirrors the essay writing process. I have often encouraged students when writing a chunked and scaffolded essay with PEE paragraphs (i.e. Point-Evidence-Explain) to write their intro paragraph last. That way, it reflects exactly what the paper is about and that they are not unneededly pigeonholing themselves.

Considering mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery students need to familiarize themselves with the medium and the myriad genres within podcasting as a frame of reference before creating their own. I remember back to my journalism days in high school and college and the assignments where we were given a sample style and asked to write our next piece as if the sample author had written it. I think this could be a necessary first assignment for students to do a short five-minute podcast either autobiographical or a one-on-one interview and practice in the Fresh Air or WTF style of interview or the cliffhanger narrative style of Serial.

My research did yield some detailed resources to guide students to the best tools for recording, editing and publishing. When my students are ready to begin sampling the variety of available apps, I’ll send them to this EdTechTeacher link.

Greg Kulowiec gives a knowledgeable and succinct video tutorial of Spreaker which not only seems the most intuitive for me, especially where editing by clicking and dragging or selecting and cutting are concerned but also its accessibility. It is available for Chromebooks and for both Android and OSX mobile operating systems. I would encourage my students to peruse EdTechTeacher’s full list (pictured below) of sortable by column, free and field-tested recording, editing and podcast productions apps. (Kulowiec, 2016).

I am hopeful about the opportunities for student voice and creativity in production and assessment. I also believe that podcasts lend themselves well to group projects, considering their multi-faceted production elements. 

One intriguing finding from my research connected with my interest in differentiating modes of assessment. That is, what if we encouraged students to create a podcast in lieu of a research paper. I found a US News article that features an Edmonds-Woodway High School 10th grade English teacher Nancy Branum and librarian Karen Rautenburg who did just that. 

Branum noted that the structure of the podcasts paralleled that of conventional deductive style research papers but allowed, even demanded, for more creativity and intentional storytelling, which piqued student interest and engagement. “Just like a paper, a podcast needs a beginning, middle and end, Branom says. ‘You have to have a hook and an introduction with context. You have to introduce your interviews and you have to be able to decide, well, what chunk of this interview I'm going to take so it makes sense – kind of like evidence from a novel that you put in a paper’” (Pannoni, 2016).

I am intrigued that student-created podcasts could drive student expression through storytelling and critical thinking and differentiate assessments as students interview experts or each other and create primary/secondary source evidence, gain media literacy skills and contribute to our growing digital record of contemporary history.

References
Kulowiec, Greg (2017). Podcasting: Using Podcasts in the classroom. EdTechTeacher. Retrieved from: http://edtechteacher.org/tools/multimedia/podcasting/

Pannoni, Alexandra (2016, Feb 29). High School Teachers Tune In Students With Podcasts: Podcast assignments can show teens another way to tell stories. US News. Retrieved from: https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/high-school-notes/2016/02/29/high-school-teachers-tune-in-students-with-podcasts 

Vincent, Tony (2008). Creating Podcasts with your students. Reading Rockets. Retrieved from: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/creating-podcasts-your-students