 I'm Grady Edwards with Beau Gorszewski. Welcome to DISCAST, a podcast from the Ori County School's digital integration team. We believe that educational technology can be used to transform teaching and learning in the classroom. We strive to spotlight the good work our teachers are doing across our county and hope our discussions will inspire possibilities for your classroom. Your journey into the world of edtech starts right now. Say test a couple times. Get your voices working. Testing, testing. Testing, testing. I am Cass. Kangaroo. I'm Samantha. I'm Grady. I'm DJ. I'm Abby. I'm Gabby. I'm Karim. I'm... Come to the DISCAST. Welcome to the DISCAST. We'd like to thank you for tuning in to today's episode. If you're new to the DISCAST, we are edtech specialists looking to promote the fantastic work taking place all across Ori County Schools. Be sure to check out all of our previous episodes and, as always, don't forget to subscribe, like, and spread the word. If you're a returning listener, welcome back. We have a very special kids take over episode today. But before we get to that, let's recognize our tech innovators of the month. Thanks, Bo. Let's start as we always do by congratulating our tech innovators of the month for April. We know we're a little behind, but we want to make sure to give a huge shout out to Nicole Peters of St. James Intermediate, Kim Weissong of North Myrtle Beach Middle, and Jennifer Meyers of Ori County Education Center. Great job, April Tech Innovators. I'd also like to take a moment to thank Ms. Candace Lane for her assistance with our podcast, Audio. It was really great to have someone with her musical background and expertise to train us up, if you will, with some of our audio settings. Thanks, Grady. I tell you what, we have a great episode lined up for you today and another great interview with two fantastic elementary teachers from Riverside Elementary School. But before we get to that, let's talk about how some of the Discs were inspired by students. Students, you say? Like which ones, Bo? Well, you know, Grady, if you followed Dear Discs on social media, I got to see some videos and student samples of podcasting from Anna King's and Whitney Cook's classes. These students were doing book reports and interviewing a partner to learn more about the book. That's great. I haven't heard about such great collaboration since I talked to my folks at Loris Middle in our Discast episode five. Well, anyways, these students were amazing. I love inflection, their voices, and I can tell a decent amount of planning and thought was put into the projects. Maybe these students were inspired by our episode two podcast where Jenny Leckie informed our listeners on how to get podcasting started in their classes. Well, luckily our very own Megan Quillen informed us about these projects and she was able to sit down with Ms. King and Ms. Cook to find out a little bit more about their projects and podcasting. I also would like to give a shout out to our fellow Discs, Holly Jackson, who was a huge help with teaching the students some garage band tips while you and Megan did your interviews. Nice. Now let's take a listen and hear what these students and teachers have to say. Hey, I'm really excited to be here today at Riverside Elementary and I'm sitting here today with a couple awesome teachers and they're going to introduce themselves really quick. I'm Anna King and I teach second grade. And I'm Whitney Cook and I teach first grade. And today we're here to talk a little bit about how podcasting is starting here in elementary school and we're just really, really excited to hear that students are able to take their devices and to create something that allows them to put their voice out there. So when you first started getting started with this podcasting in the very beginning, what were some of the thoughts or your initial thoughts or ideas as to how you were going to get this started with your students? I'm assuming that this is somewhat of a new idea for elementary school. So give us just a little bit of an idea of what your initial thoughts were and kind of how you worked through those to prepare for podcasting for the first time. So at first I listened to Jenny Lecky's podcast with the Discast about podcasting and she has older kids but I was trying to think to myself, how can I bring this into a first grade classroom? And at first I was like, okay, there's going to be a long process of this. My kids probably don't even know what a podcast is. So I kind of just first started thinking what did I need to teach them about podcasting and how was I going to implement it into our curriculum and meet our standards. So we kind of first just started out with reading a story and then responding in a podcast form and it kind of led to bigger podcasting projects that we've done in our classroom. Yeah and I agree. I listened to Lecky's podcast Discast with you guys and I was inspired that she mentioned bringing it down to that level. She said to use split grid or padlet and so I had thought about using that as well just like Miss Cook had mentioned just responding to something like that. And I agree I thought it was going to be a big long process but I was proven wrong a quick introduction and giving them some background and they were often running. That's awesome to hear and a lot of times we hear that with students. You know teachers take this time to prepare and they're sometimes shocked at how fast and how quickly students are able to pick up and run with it. So it sounds like that's the case here with the podcasting in first and second grade. That's awesome. So beyond using podcasting in your classroom for students to work on the curriculum or whatever standard it is that you're focusing on that day what are some other areas that you feel like podcasting has helped to prepare your students with or some other other skills that it's helping your students with. I think it's helped with teamwork just being able to collaborate or collaborate yeah together and they had to work as a team it just could it wasn't in the beginning we did our podcast and it was just their podcast where they were just speaking and then we introduced them to having two people on their podcast and so they had to kind of feed off of each other and know what to say next and we actually ended up using scripts for our really big podcast that they did and I think they turned out pretty good. I love that and I love that you took it in steps like you allowed them to kind of do something non-academic first by themselves and then took it to a partner and then a much larger project including a script and I know some of your students earlier when we were talking with them we're talking about how the script was one of their favorite parts and so I think that that allowed going that that route that process really allowed the students to appreciate every step of the way instead of expecting them to do it all at one time so that's awesome yeah we um I I agree with miss cook the collaboration was a big piece also the communication being able to communicate and speak they learned a lot of different skills on their iPads and practice that as well awesome so if you know after this this discast there might be some other elementary schools and students who want to get started with podcasting in their classrooms and if you had if you were able to give them any advice what would be your words of advice or wisdom or any tips for success that you give other teachers that are looking to do some podcasting in elementary school I think um just go for it I mean don't be hesitant don't be nervous it was a learning process for my students and I together so just take it as that and I think that your kids will be relieved to know that you're learning with them so don't overthink it and just do it I would listen to that podcast or that discast that Jenny like he was on I think that really inspired me and I know when miss cook started it that's what made me start so I think you know hopefully listening to this can inspire you to know that somebody's already done it so I can do it too yeah I say just go for it too um you know listening to Jenny like he's podcast and then bring bring podcast into your room so if you go on iTunes they're even for the younger primary level there are tons of podcasts out there that you can just show to your students and they can kind of get the idea of what a podcast is but you'll be really surprised that if you just let them go at it the first time it's like they're already in the zone for it they introduce themselves and they show you to subscribe and like at the end and you don't even prompt them for those kinds of things but they just do it and it was amazing to watch how they it just clicked for them um so take those podcasts in your room just show them and just go for it and don't be afraid to fail because we all learn through failure yep I love that we listen to a joke of the day in our class that we found on Apple podcast and they love listening to that so they get to hear podcasts every day and be able to listen to that intro and all the different pieces of a podcast and so that's really excited them to hear it very cool that's a great idea to give them exposure to those and we'll for our listeners we'll make sure we put some of these links to these podcasts so that you have them available and you all both you both touched on an awesome thing so one thing that I'm always inspired on inspired by in education is teachers learning and taking from other teachers right and so I've heard a couple times you all reference our Teacher of the Year Miss Jenny Leckie who did a previous discast which was awesome so for our listeners if you haven't heard that one definitely go back and check that one out but I also heard it was episode two oh episode two yeah episode two thank you for that um I also heard that um Anna you said that you really kind of jumped on board with this after Whitney was using it in your classroom and talk a little bit about how here at Riverside you all are sharing what you're doing in your classrooms because I've heard some other teachers in the building asking what y'all are doing as well well we have something called the pineapple chart and so we were able to share some of our podcasting and script writing and the process and some of the videos and what they've completed and so we post that on the pineapple chart and then other teachers can check it out and listen or they can stop by the room and see it in action so we hope that that happens because it's always nice to see it done and then also sharing it on social media obviously that's where we heard the discast and listened to Jenny Lucky so on twitter and whatnot really cool and it also provides like that authentic audience for your students too when people come in to watch them as well very cool um so changing direction just a little bit one one thing that us as teachers right we're always tasked with the test and making sure we're always content driven um and so when we're being held accountable for our standards what is a way that we can justify or how is there a way for us to justify using podcasting in our classrooms so how are you all able to use something like podcasting but still make sure that you're covering your standards and all the things that we're held accountable for I mean I don't really think there's any justifying I mean it's we're teaching the standards we're teaching you know digital content standards we're teaching story elements we're teaching communication standards inquiry standards I mean we could go on and on and sure miss cook has lists of them lists of them as well so I mean we're just jamming so much in by using podcast or any type of app and technology I just think you know they can always write with pencil and paper but verbally voicing their ideas and their thoughts whenever we reference a certain skill like main idea I mean you're hitting all of those skills whenever you're making a podcast just making them think about a topic the skills are just already embedded so like Anna said there's no justifying it's just happening without even knowing it that's amazing it's just it's such a joy to hear that you're able to find such an easy connection between the two um and I love it because you're right I think there is something to be said about student voice and when we were interviewing the students they that was one of the things they were most proud of as well is how it it gave them that that student voice so that's awesome I think teachers they are hesitant to do a lot of technology and even podcasting something so new and unsure about it but it's so it's really I think it's actually been fairly easy to put in ELA standards or writing or you know writing standards communication standards they all flow very easily with podcasting I think it worked out great so excellent that's so good to hear so um just in general just for our people who might be getting into podcasting for the first time I know you all just started off very basic what just give us an idea of the equipment that you and your students did use so what devices what was kind of the workflow for when students were actually ready to record did they all stay in one room just that just the kind of the logistics of how you all ran that first podcasting in your room so in our classroom we first used padlet because it was just a read and respond type project that we did and so after reading the story I kind of sent them back to their seats and I made them jot down their notes about what they wanted their response to be so they'd have something in front of them so it wasn't just on the fly but then I kind of just I just spread them out around the room but all we had were their iPads and they just recorded straight to padlet and um it was it was great it was simple later on we added the recorder app just where they could record their voices so we could upload it to different places like to our seesaw or I wanted to post them on twitter that just made it easier making it in the recorder app so just an iPad ourselves that's all we had and that was the same with us we used our iPads and recorder HQ I think it was we used and like Whitney said we uploaded them to seesaw but you know we don't have the fancy microphones we didn't have a quiet area we just kind of scattered ourselves in the hallway went in the bathroom in the classroom and cracked the door and just found quiet places to be and really didn't have anything fancy so and it works and I know we are going to try to take it to the next level so using garageband to create an intro with music would be the next step so nice and that actually that's great because that actually leads me into the next question is um so I love first of all that you didn't overthink the process of preparing for this like you didn't wait until you had all the tools to be able to do it you just jumped right in with what you had and students got used to it so now that you have gotten your first one or two podcasts under your belts are you your next steps with podcasting um what what do you kind of see do you do you all feel like uh eventually your students will be able to put their stuff out there to a different platform for maybe a different audience or what are your next thoughts or steps with podcasting in your classrooms well the school year's ending so we and my class we are trying to make a second grade like mrs king's podcast we actually have kind of voted on a classroom podcast name I think we're going to be kap cap king's awesome podcasters so check us out if when it gets out there but um we're going to try to um focus our first few episodes we're going to focus on getting the second or first grade first graders ready to come up to us by teaching them expectations and the cool things that are in second grade about different things that they can be excited about when coming up so I think that's what we're going to do um like I said we're going to try to work with garage band and get an intro and kind of just take it to the next step in that way um great idea yeah that was the music piece at the beginning the intro and the ending my kids have wanted to add music so that was going to be our next step but they also want to know like how they can get their podcast on iTunes like the other because there are kids down there that have podcast and they're like well how do we get ours on there because they want to take them home and just be able to listen to them so that's our where we're headed I think like they for them to hear that they can put it on apple podcasts or youtube can we see it on youtube mrs king I think that they're really excited about that so like miss cook Whitney said just to be able to have other people at home and family members and friends here what they've worked so hard on absolutely well we are really excited to see both of your classrooms in your podcasts come to life and we will be your first subscribers for sure awesome so keep us posted on all of that and is there anything else that you wanted to share or anything else that that you wanted to kind of leave our listeners with about podcasting you all definitely covered a lot of stuff today and we appreciate you really taking that time to reflect on on how it was successful in your classroom are there anything else that you wanted to share before we kind of close out oh like I already said just go for it yeah the kids love it there's no hesitation it was a great experience and we're excited to just keep on moving along with it yep you're going to be excited what your kids can do that's right yeah well thank you ladies and thank you so much for our listeners and again if you're looking for the disc cast episode number two with Jenny Leckie make sure you go back and listen to that one and we'll also put in a few other links that were mentioned here by miss my miss cook and miss king so thank you very much and we're excited mega was even able to sit down with some first and second graders from Riverside Elementary to talk about podcasting in their classroom let's listen in so you're fairly new to podcasting can you tell me so far what has been your favorite part about being able to podcast in your second grade classroom my favorite part about podcasting would probably be being to be able to do it with a partner because i like to do stuff with my partner a lot if you could choose one thing to do your next podcast on in your classroom with miss king what would be your next podcast what would be what would be the topic or what would you want to podcast about my class and what what about your class that they're the best thing in the whole entire world i love that i love that you all have been playing around with podcasting in your second grade class with miss king and i want to know so far what has been your favorite part about podcasting in class with your teacher working on um definitely working on my speaking voice cool and elaborate on that a little bit what do you mean by that working on your speaking voice expression like the good and good amount of expression expression and like the voice fluctuation as well yeah equivalency definitely very cool love it how do you think podcasting can help students in classrooms with their with their peers and with their teachers so thinking thinking about all the personalities you know that you have in a classroom you have some people who are really shy you have some people who are really energetic and want to talk all the time right so how do you think using podcasting can help in a in the classroom um maybe you can help in the classroom like maybe it can help like to be more serious because you know you don't want to be like you don't want to be all like boom and a podcast you know yeah time to be serious but i'll be putting all your thoughts somewhere yeah but the right right amount just the right amount funny and serious i like that the right amount of funny and serious a good balance okay it could help people with their um voice okay what do you think um i think it helped people like learn new things like if you were an older kid and you made a podcast you could ask your teacher if you want to interview it to other um smaller kids than you so they could learn new things i love that idea so so your audience could be younger students to hear some of the things that maybe they haven't learned yet that's a great idea you think podcasting can help classrooms like a second grade classroom or a fifth grade classroom what are some things you do while you're podcasting that you think can help almost every classroom if they if they tried to the podcast in their room get a good speaking voice speaking voice and what do you mean by a good speaking voice like loud and clear not why is being loud and clear and having a good speaking voice important so people can understand what you're saying and hear correctly what you're saying i agree with ty because like if you didn't have a good speaking voice many people wouldn't know what you're like trying to say wow what an interview thank you Riverside students and mrs cook and king for their time today be sure to continue to follow their adventures on twitter with at anna underscore king 001 and at wn cook make sure to check out our dear diss on social media like instagram twitter and our facebook page to see some of the highlights from our other schools in ory county also be sure to check out the vodcast version of our episode of youtube the first person to leave a comment get some hcspdl swag oh man some hcspdl swag don't want to miss out on that well unfortunately it looks like right of time remember all of the resources discussed in today's discasts can be found in the description of the youtube video you will find reference tools audio files and a transcript of this episode let's head back to our riverside podcasters to close us out my name is oi my name is my name is camera my name is my name is carter to continue to follow our story please subscribe to the discast thank you for joining us today and always remember in the words of george kuros technology will never replace great teachers but technology in the hands of great teachers can be transformational see you next time thank you for watching this tutorial be sure to subscribe like comment and follow us by clicking on the links below in the description