I think one of the large obstacles is the amount of time needed from the teacher to do the “nuts and bolts” work on the podcast to make a quality product. The editing process takes a lot of time and effort, even for people who are very good at it. Though having students edit might occasionally be a useful teaching tool, most of the editing has to be done by the teacher, on top of monitoring and helping students with producing their text, script, doing research, etc. It would also be difficult to monitor student progress; some criteria would have to be set up along the way to be sure students are moving towards a final product, especially if the podcast project were long-term over several days. Students also might need help with technical issues, which would again draw the teacher’s time away from helping with their products and teaching content. Group work is also always a potential source of conflict, which would have to be monitored.
What are some things a teacher could do ahead of time, during the project and after the students have recorded to make this process more efficient in class?
Ahead of time, the teacher can have all the musical and sound effect choices narrowed down to a short but useful list, so students don’t get bogged down in those details. The teacher can also prepare a good schedule of what parts of the project will be done when. Also, the teacher could spend a few lessons on teaching students the editing tools and other technical skills, so that class time isn’t wasted on technical issues. Finally, the teacher can have students prepare their scripts and choose their music/sound effects all before class, for homework or in prior lessons. In this way, the during-class time would be spent only on recording, not making artistic decisions or writing scripts. During the project, the teacher would need to be focused on monitoring students’ progress, while still being available for technical and editing help. The “during” phase will be very hectic for the teacher, hence the need for the advance steps noted above. After recording, the teacher might choose to do all of the editing for the students, since that will be a time-consuming process. Since editing skills are not likely to be the goal of instruction, there is no great loss to the students if the teacher does the editing. Having an established rubric ready after the lesson will help make grading the finished podcast easier as well.
If doing a podcast in class is not an option, what are some other ways you could give interested students the experience of making a podcast in school?
You might start a podcasting club as an after-school enrichment program. Or, you might incorporate podcasting somehow into the school’s existing routines, by making the morning announcement or a weekly schoolwide message, for example, in the form of a podcast that is broadcast over the PA and also available in the library or computer lab. Alternatively, you might suggest that students do research on a topic and record their thoughts on a cheaper, more accessible medium such as a tape recorder, then find a way to convert that recording into a digital format and edit it to produce a podcast using the student’s own voice and ideas.
