Elementary School Students Become Podcasting Pros
Profiles in Success: Wells Elementary School
Wells, Maine — Room 208 at Wells Elementary School has some stars in the making. Not only have Teacher Bob Sprankle’s third- and fourth-grade students been producing their own podcasts, they’ve been on the road, showing off their work for technology leaders at several conferences. The students have created such a “buzz” that educators across the globe now download and listen to the podcasts, and send questions for the students to research and answer in future recordings. In Sprankle’s opinion, podcasting has the potential to transform education.
“Instead of me teaching the kids discrete skills in isolation — such as research, writing, and making presentations — in the process of making podcasts they’ve started teaching each other these skills,” Sprankle notes. “In their small groups I’ll hear them say, ‘That’s not right; you have to change this.’ Then when they come together as a whole group, they’ll do it again. The instruction is just so genuine.
“They’ll call someone on a grammatical error that I would have let slide, thinking it was too sophisticated,” Sprankle adds. “They may not know how to name it, but they know it’s incorrect. Creating the podcasts has completely changed their writing and language skills.”
First, a Blog
Sprankle, who has been teaching at Wells for 10 years, has had a website the entire time. But he was often frustrated with the amount of time needed to make updates to his site. Then he discovered blogging. Once he and his students discovered how much fun it was to write a blog, he says, it was a natural next step to compose scripts for a podcast.
“Blogs are great,” Sprankle says, “because every kid can have his or her own corner where they can show their work. As soon as I started my blog, it really motivated the kids to write more. Then I started listening to some podcasts, and I came away thinking, ‘We have to start doing this.’”
Next Page: Students Decide Podcast Topics
