In two weeks, I will be attending and presenting at the iPadPalooza conference in Austin, Texas. Today, Wes and I spent several hours planning and creating my third presentation about classroom podcasts and radio shows: “The Room 108 Radio Show.”
I create our podcast episodes on my iPhone using the free app, Opinion. Our shows are embedded on our classroom website and linked on the Opinion website for free. I also share links to our episodes on Twitter.
I never imagined myself as a podcaster. This is one of the things Wes encouraged me to do as an activity in our classroom when I started teaching again 3 years ago. Wes has been creating and listening to podcasts for many years.
Podcasting turned out to be one of the best things we did all year to integrate our learning and help my students share their voices outside our classroom walls with others. Our classroom radio show was instrumental in helping me build our classroom culture throughout the year. We used our podcast in our closing classroom meetings to share out our learning, and also to showcase and highlight things we learned from visitors who came into our classroom. This year, those visitors included Kevin Durant and Enes Kanter from the Oklahoma City Thunder NBA team. Visitors also included Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, Oklahoma State Superintendent Joy Hoffmeister, Kevin Durant’s mother, Wanda Pratt, and Stillwater author Alton Carter. Last year Oklahoma Senator James Lankford visited, among other people. Our classroom podcast has provided a great way for us to reflect on and share about these experiences with others.
