Create a Class Podcast Using Anchor

🎤Create a Class Podcast Using Anchor 🎤

   Having my students create a podcast seemed like a daunting task a few months ago. I imagined it would be time consuming and it would require a tedious amount of editing. 
   Like many teachers, I honestly just didn't know where to begin or what platform to use. I had so many questions and very little answers. I didn't know anyone in my school site or my district doing anything like it, so I ventured to look for resources on my own. 
  I had my students create a "podcast" for our class using the audio recording feature in Seesaw and that was great. I knew about Anchor and shared it with a colleague. As the end of the school year approached, I didn't really make the time to give it a try with students. My co-worker and I discussed the pros and cons of each app and went off to summer break knowing we would eventually circle back to it. 
  Toward the end of June, I was given the opportunity to attend the ISTE conference in Chicago. There I was able to learn from Matt Miller, the podcast guru himself! He shared that creating a podcast didn't have to be difficult.

He suggested that we record students throughout the week, make a short compilation of their audio clips and make that our podcast. 

He made it seem so easy! 

  I immediately realized, I was over complicating and overthinking this whole podcast thing. Creating a class podcast can be organic, and every students can get a chance to participate. More importantly, my students and I could share our learning with parents, staff, the community, and the world. 
  As I returned from ISTE to teach two-weeks of summer school, I knew I had a great opportunity to play with Anchor and do a trial run. It couldn't have been any easier. 

Starting Our Class Podcast
   I asked for student volunteers to record their reflections for the week in 60 seconds or less. I also recorded speeches, discussions, and music recitals throughout the week that I could opt to include in our podcast at the end of the week. Through Anchor I then added intro music and a few transitions. Before I knew it, we had our first podcast after our first week of summer school. It was magic! 
    It was so easy to explain the recording process to students by quickly showing them on my phone. It also didn't interfere with instruction. 
 I gave the student volunteers a script at the beginning of the week and told them they would share a short reflection with me on Friday. The students were excited to record their recap of the week and did it in less than a minute during a transition time, toward the end of class or during lunch time. It was so seamless and easy. 

Sharing Our Podcast
    I then shared the link to our Podcast with our principal who posted it on Twitter, I sent the link via Remind to parents, and posted it in Google Classroom for students. Anchor makes it so easy to create a podcast from your phone or computer without the need for expensive equipment, software or a subscription. It's completely free! 

In the summer we produced two episodes without loosing instructional time as a class. Now that I know how easy it can be, I have so many ideas for our year long class podcast. I've created multiple scripts and a graphic organizer that will allow me to be more organized as we put together our weekly or biweekly episodes. I'm thinking of creating a podcast binder or notebook with all the scripts and posting them in Google Classroom for student reference. I am excited to see parents involved in our weekly adventures and join us in our year long middle school journey! 

How to get started

Anchor.fm Website and Mobile App Videos 

Anchor.fm Website: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9G-ceOpfWU

Anchor Mobile App Video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOHe2qoze5E&feature=youtu.be

Resources (Parent Letters, Scripts, Graphic Organizers)

Like you would with any other student activity, the more organized you are the better. I've created parent consent letters in English and Spanish to get permission to record and publish student voices. I've also created multiple scripts to get students started. As they develop their skills they will create their own and the podcasts will improve over time. The scripts are so easy to follow, that I truly believe even little ones can do it! Stop by my TPT store for the full class podcast starter bundle or get ideas to create your own. 😊

Resource available in my TPT store (Click Here)

 Video overview of TPT Resource:

If you have any other ideas or suggestions for podcasting in the classroom feel free to share them! I am excited to learn how I can continue to improve my use of this medium of communication with my students. 

Let's keep students engaged, 

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Student Created Peer-Feedback Google Forms

Student Created Peer-Feedback Forms 

  We often take on the burden of creating everything for students without considering how much they can contribute and learn from the creation of the very resources they use in our classrooms.

In the past, I've created a generic Google student feedback form that all students completed during or after a student presentation. Sometimes those forms are just used as fillers so that the audience is held accountable for listening to their peers. Sometimes, it's used to gather data for a class as a whole and collective results are shared with the class. Other times, if I have the time, I will use Autocrat to forward the feedback to students to their e-mail, and hope that they look at it and learn from it.
Of course, in order to collect uniform data from your students a teacher created form is ideal. However, I do believe there are instances where students need individual targeted differentiated feedback and feedback they find meaningful and relevant. 

Getting started 

This week I decided to do something a little different and take work off my own plate at the same time. After discussing with students the "qualities of a good speaker" I asked them to create their own student feedback form. We went over how to create a form and the types of questions they could include. 

Students then just took off! They were so excited and so creative with their forms! I was so impressed with their use of incorporating GIFs, pictures, emojis, and their categories were exactly what they wanted to know about their own performance. 

I still used our rubric to grade their speech, but now they also had the feedback from peers on 4-5 specific questions they wanted people to pay attention to during their presentation.

Work Flow

Once all the students created their form, I put all their names on a Google Sheet and posted the sheet in Google Classroom for them to post their links to their form next to their names.
TIP: Having the names pre-loaded completely eliminated the chaos of students typing on each other's cells. 

I completely loved having all the links in a Google Sheet that all students could access through Google Classroom. As students came up to deliver their speech, all the students looked up the speaker's name and clicked on their personally designed peer feedback form. 

I had students read over the form so that they knew what their peers wanted feedback on. They then closed their computers half way and listened attentively to the presentation having in mind what the presenter wanted them to notice. At the end of the presentation, they opened their computers with the Google form already up and completed the form for their peer. We continued this process for each speaker. It was so seamless and easy for all students to follow. 

Example of our Google Sheet with all the Google form links

As a result, students had feedback from all their peers instantly and the awesome charts and graphs we normally see for an entire class were personalized just for them, without me having to take any extra steps to get them that information! 🤗 

Things to consider 

1. Walk around and give students feedback on their forms. 

         Students will need a little guidance with spelling and formatting. Many of them were giving too many options for their questions, so we talked about how that wouldn't really yield good data. They are new at this after all! After creating their first form and with your feedback, they will know exactly what to do! 

2. Use multiple choice or range questions ONLY 

    Students will be tempted to add a short answer question with comments or suggestions. Since I was not the owner of their forms, it would be difficult for me to moderate those types of questions so I opted to not use them on our first try. I think it would be completely okay after creating a few forms throughout the year and going over expectations. However, for the first form, in order to avoid any inappropriate comments, or misinterpretations I opted to have students ONLY use questions with multiple choice options or range questions. I wanted them to look at data and the graphs and not worry about student comments. We reviewed suggestions for all students at the end as a class so that they still got that feedback.

3. Provide a space for students to reflect on their feedback and data

    Students then reflected on their performance and feedback through an assignment in Google Classroom where they reference the specific data gathered through their form and their score in their speech rubric. 

Sample Reflection Assignment Instructions
Create a slideshow reflecting on your speech performance.

Include the following: 1. Title Page


2. Transcript of the speech


3. Video of the speech (will be shared with you by Ms. Gomez)
     What did you notice after watching the video footage of your speech?  


4. Peer Feedback Results 
What were your strengths and areas for improvement?
Include pictures of your data.

5. Rubric Score 
What do you need to improve on based on the rubric? 
What were your strongest and weakest categories? 
Include a picture of the rubric. 

6. Overall experience with your first formal speech.


I'm looking forward to reading my students' reflections and seeing how this process continues to make them aware of the improvements they must make for their next presentation or speech.

Feel free to comment below with how you foster student reflections in your classroom for student presentations and speeches. New ideas are welcomed and appreciated. 🤓


Let's keep students engaged, 

Collaborative Student Created Rubric

Collaborative Student Created Rubric

What better way to make rubrics and grades meaningful than to have students decide how they will be graded?

 I often create rubrics myself and give them to students. This year I want to focus on student voice and have them tell me what type of feedback they would like to receive. In an effort to get the ball rolling, I tested it with my summer school ELA 8 class. They were preparing for a speech on food waste. 

1. Have them write down their individual thoughts

 As they enter the room, I always have a Do Now slide with a task like the one below.  The students wrote down their answers in their composition books. 

2. Find common requirements/criteria
Once they all had something down in their notebooks, we collectively came up with requirements. The students volunteered to share what they had and noted if they had the same thing in their own notes as their peers. So, I wrote their ideas down on the white board as they shared them out. My students came up with the following common criteria: 

• Eye contact
• Posture
• Clarity
• Elaboration
• Evidence 
• On topic 
• Hand gestures
• Volume 
• Visuals

One student even mentioned Ethos, Pathos, and Logos! 🤗

3. Group requirements into categories

Once we had everyone's novel ideas, I moderated the discussion to group the requirements together. We decided which ones could fit into one category and together we decided to name them. I did tell them we should only have FOUR  categories to keep the rubric simple. I then asked them how many bands they wanted and if they wanted numbers (1-4 point rubric) or a performance rubric (Not met, Almost Met, Met). They liked the numbers better, which I thought was interesting! 

Students had a lot to say and covered everything I would normally add!


4. Create the descriptors together for each category 

I then took on the role of recorder, which in retrospect I could have easily assigned to a student! I will definitely delegate that to them next time. 🙂 Students told me what to write at each point level for each category. I loved hearing what they had to say and how they differentiated between a 1, 2, 3, and 4 score in each category. 

5. Share it with them digitally! 
Once it was done, I took a picture of it to share it with them in Google Classroom. I did type it up to be able to use it during their speeches and give them feedback. I didn't have a digital template set up or really knew where this was going, but in the future, I would have a student recorder type it in a shared document or slide like the one below. 🙂

Lesson Learned & Reflection

1. Students enjoy sharing ideas
Students love when YOU ask them what they think. 🙂 

2. Students want what you want!
Students are very aware of what you expect from them, so let them tell you. There will be more student buy-in. Most of the time they'll come up with everything you wanted in the rubric. 

3. A student can be the recorder! 
I totally took over that job, but looking back, I should have had a student take it. 




4. Maximize technology! 
In the future I plan to have  a student record the rubric digitally using Google Docs or slides so that we can share a digital version right away in Google Classroom or have multiple students type it. It will also save me time!  
Now that I've done this, I'm thinking that in the future, I can have a student recorder modify a digital rubric template. That way they only worry about content and not layouts or formatting. 

5. Students understand and remember what they create! 
I have never had as much student engagement with a rubric as I did with this lesson! I usually make it, go over it and I don't really know if students truly understand why they even need it or why I use it. It took about the same amount of time to create it together, if not faster, than to create it myself.  I think I actually saved myself some time by creating it together since they understood every part of it as they created it. 🙂

I know I won't do this with all rubrics since some of them are state or district adopted rubrics, but even with those, why not have students look at them and develop a student-friendly version using a collaborative template! 

Let's  create a space where rubrics are meaningful, engaging, and relevant for our students instead of overwhelming and intimidating. 

Welcome!

Welcome! 

I am looking forward to sharing teaching ideas, resources, and experiences.  

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