December 2005 — MacAdemic/Mac Educator

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Podcasting: Transforming Middle Schoolers Into ‘Middle Scholars’

by Larry S. Anderson

Halderson’s methods manifest the three C’s of teaching: creativity, curiosity, and confidence. Naturally creative herself, she knows how to use the Mac to draw out the creative spirits within her students. Because she models the benefits of a strong curiosity, her students are free to explore new ways of learning and expression. Certainly, this project has strengthened and even increased the students’ confidence in themselves.

The culture of excellence that Halderson has fostered is real. It’s enabling students to become a meaningful part of a learning system, one in which they take pride because they feel ownership. They are demonstrating that when properly motivated, students who take responsibility for their own learning are the norm, not the exception.

“The technology is a tool to implement the curriculum,” Halderson says. “Podcasting is all about learning the content. If you don’t have educational content, you have no podcast; no amount of sound effects, visuals, or music can hide a lack of content in an educational podcast.

“I see podcasting as a form of teaching. The old adage is true: You remember 10 percent of what you hear, but 90 percent of what you teach. If we didn’t have Apples and iLife, much of what we’re accomplishing simply couldn’t be done.”

A Global Audience, a Personal Impact
Learn the benefits of podcasting—from the podcasters themselves.

JEANNE HALDERSON’S podcasting project has had quite an influence on the worldwide educational technology community. It enjoys a global reach, as the Longfellow Middle School podcast is available by free subscription at the iTunes Music Store under “Podcasts” (visit www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts, or you can find the podcasts on the Podcast Networks site at www.podcast.net/show/75801). Yet the impact at the most local level, from student to student, has been equally dramatic.

Speaking with the students, one comes away with a tremendous sense of how proud they are—of themselves, their team members, the things they are learning, and their pursuit of excellence in every aspect of school life. Their comments, many of which follow below, testify to the value of a teacher who inspires young people to leverage the power of technology to develop more productive lives:

“Whenever I hear myself on a podcast, I want to get better for the next time.”—Alex

“Podcasting makes me come up at lunch because I feel that people should know what we are doing at school. It also helps me to become closer to my friends.”—Ben

“Podcasting reaches out to others across the nation. I feel our voices are being heard.”—Alyssa

“Podcasting is very motivating because people from all over the world are listening to you.We are competing with all the other student podcasts to be the very best.”—Zach

“Podcasting isn’t just an assignment. It is your way of being creative and showing the things that you love.”—Brandon

“Podcasting is motivating because it is just plain fun. It doesn’t matter what the subject is, podcasting makes all subjects enjoyable to learn.”—Kim

“Podcasting is so motivating because you get to have fun while you are learning. You also get to team up with a partner and make a great piece of work.”—Jay

“Podcasting to me is a fun and educating way to learn. Making something fun makes kids want to do it more, and if you mix in grammar and writing, you will have geniuses in no time.”—Addison

“Podcasting motivates me because you feel like you are telling the world about little stuff that we do. It makes you feel important and accepted.”—Ryan

“Podcasting motivates me to do better with my sentence fluency and my speech.”—David

“All kids should have the opportunity, because podcasting actually makes you interested in school and in your work.”—Ryan

“GarageBand and iPhoto work together in perfect harmony with each other. GarageBand is very student-friendly, so it’s easy to work with yet it lets you use all the functions you would ever need to make podcasts.”—Luke