S6: E126 Soundtrap Series Student Podcasts in the Classroom

 Season Six

Episode 126

Soundtrap Project #4 Student Podcasts in the Classroom

One of the greatest tools we can give our students is to help them use their voice and grow their confidence in speaking and sharing what they know.  I was always terrified - literally - whenever I was asked to speak in front of a class.  Even in middle school I remember tearing up or crying when it was my turn to read because I was so anxious I’d say something wrong and others would laugh at me.  Which now seems somewhat silly because I was a great reader and should have had lots of confidence about speaking, but I didn’t.  Something I love about giving students the opportunity to record their voices is that it allows them to speak about something they’ve learned while allowing them to present it in an aural way.  Sure you can have them present it in front of the class, but you can also allow students to present their project without the traditional speech at the front.  When I was a young student I would have loved this because I could still share, but not have the pressure.  

The purpose of this project was to allow students to share about a song that is meaningful to them, learn more information about the meaning behind the song, the artist/movie/musical associated with the song and learn how to create a podcast episode as well as design a visual piece - either drawn by them or created using online tools.

FIRST STEPS
1) Have students listen to at least one podcast episode from a podcast about music - personal favorites are from Song Exploder.  Just be mindful of which episode you choose as there are some that are explicit.  My favorite episode is the Black Panther episode and my students agreed.

2) Simplify the process as much as you can.  There’s a lot to figure out!  I created a packet that walked them through the process of creating their episode.  I wrote it out by steps so that I could assign a specific amount of material to be completed in each class.  Step one - due by end of day first class… step two - so on.

3) Choose the tools you want to use.  I chose to use Soundtrap for the podcast episode recording, Canva for the online digital podcast picture, and Google Docs for the tool where students wrote the podcast script.  But you can make this as digital or non-digital as you want!  Students could draw the picture of the podcast cover art and present it as more of a speech in class - a ‘live’ podcast.  

WAYS TO PRESENT THE PODCAST EPISODES IN CLASS

1. Traditional way where students (non-digital setting) speak their podcast for the class

2. Turn the podcast episodes in Soundtrap into mp3 downloads, upload the class files into a google form and allow students to listen to them and give feedback!

3. Create a Google Site - Two ways to do this:  

1. Take all of the student projects and upload their digital pictures and mp3 files for students to listen to episodes created by their peers.  

B. You could also assign students a page within a class Google site to host their content and enter all of their information OR students could each create their individual google sites for the podcast, but that depends on exactly how much you want students to do for the project and how much time you have with students and what works best for you.

I have chosen to have students focus on the creation of the podcast and creating the episode, but I’ll be entering the information myself into a Google Site.  Sure it takes a lot of time on my end, but it also allows me to focus on other musical skills during class because then I’m not focused on the tech aspects of teaching students how to create a google site.  I try to balance teaching musical skills and tech skills - can be hard because students definitely need to know how to use the tech, but my hope is that the musical learning is priority.