Tools of the Trade

Project Podcast

Ready to raise the volume on classroom creativity and teamwork? Incorporate podcasts to pump up the fun and boost active-listening, writing and collaborative skills. Have a look at these 10 ideas to engage and excite your students.

By Melissa Campeau

Jump-start your journalists

Reporters rove and record interviews, then edit their pieces into a news show. Sport fans, for instance, cover the basketball team while politicos track down the student council scoop.
Create. Perform. Enjoy!

Have students write original radio plays (or find some online), experiment with sound effects and act out the speaking parts. When they’re done, host a classroom audio-play festival!
Travel, virtually

Geography lessons take flight when your students partner with peers on the other side of the world. Swap podcasts with another class and share insights into holidays, customs, music — anything goes!
Get ad savvy

Students sharpen media literacy skills by dreaming up a fictional product, then scripting and voicing its radio campaign. The rest of the class listens to the ad before discussing and dissecting the message.
Make ’em laugh!

Let your natural-born entertainers shine. Students create a weekly five-minute podcast to broadcast to the entire school — including interviews, musical performances, comedy sketches — the sky’s the limit!
Pitch perfect

Are your students crafting a speech? Learning a second language? Record a practice session so they can assess their delivery. Then help them course correct by tracking their progress.
On-the-road reports
Here’s a trick for keeping field trip excitement alive. Have students record their observations while on location at the museum or zoo. In class, pair the audio with video to document the adventure.
Raise the roots
Assign a little family-tree detective work. Students interview and record relatives to find out who first came to Canada or what school was like when their grandparents were their age.
Past comes to life

History is thrilling when students can take well-known figures and act out their famous moments. Capture Sir John A. Macdonald’s first day as prime minister or Roberta Bondar’s 1992 NASA mission.
Learning by ear

Just wrapped up a unit? Keep review lively by asking children to recall and record lesson highlights. Post the podcast on the class blog so students (and parents) can have access at home.

Ready to Record?

Try software such as Podbean (podbean.com, from $3 per month) or Audacity (audacityteam.org, free) to get your project up and running in no time. When podcasts are ready, play them for your class, post them to a blog or consider going global with a directory service such as the one-stop shop podfeed.net.