Elementary School Students Become Podcasting Pros
Profiles in Success: Wells Elementary School
Students Decide Podcast Topics
At first, Sprankle suggested a few topics for his classes’ podcasts, including a newsletter and some personal reflections on their learning. He quickly found that his students were bursting with additional ideas, such as “the weird fact of the week” and “the word of the week.”
Says Sprankle, “They absolutely love coming up with topics. I’ve had kids who just never wanted to write at all, and suddenly they’ve completely taken over the writing of the scripts. One girl even told me she wanted to teach writing one day! Another student has been producing her own podcasts, which are all about staying safe on the Internet. The great thing is the kids can go home and listen to these lessons again and again, on either an iPod or a computer. It’s just fantastic.”
No Huge Investment Needed
While Sprankle has received grant funds that have allowed the purchase of some higher-end recording and editing equipment, he says that any school can get started with podcasting quite inexpensively. With a Macintosh computer and GarageBand, teachers and students have a very affordable — and enjoyable — solution.
“With all of the Macs,” says Sprankle, “the internal microphone is actually better than the external mic we were using. One of my colleagues had her kids gather around a Mac in the lab, and just get close to the microphone. Even with all of the background noise of the class, it sounded great. And we’ve recorded right into GarageBand at times, which was really easy. Plus, GarageBand 3 has these fantastic music loops that the kids can add. GarageBand 3 is so podcast-friendly; when we first started using it, the kids said, ‘Can we stay in at recess and learn how to do this?’ You don’t hear that very often!”
Next Page: An Outstanding Educational Tool
