This case study follows the journey of P6 at St Bernadette’s RC Primary School in Larbert and their teacher Catriona Martin as they explored podcasting as a method to showcase learning in their history topic on the Jacobites.
Context
The main learning goal was for the children to understand how the history of our country has shaped/impacted life today. Children were to learn about The Battle of Culloden as part of their Jacobite topic. Traditionally the children would have researched this in groups and presented their findings back as a short presentation or poster for their classmates.
While planning the Jacobite topic I realised there was not a lot of information out there online for research purposes that were child friendly and we had limited access to book based physical resources. I found a podcast about The Battle of Culloden that, although not aimed at children, was suitable for the age group. I decided to let them listen to this and take notes and this inspired me to allow them to create a podcast aimed at children so other teachers teaching this topic would have access to it.
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What did you do?
The children listened to the podcast and took notes on OneNote or Notes app. They then created a script of their own podcast using the Notes app.
The children then used the GarageBand app to record their podcast. The children had to make sure the microphone was on narrator or lead vocals. They would record a small section of their podcast and then they would add music using the loop button. They learned how to add music from the soundtracks section on garage band, and fading it in and out throughout their podcast at appropriate times. Some children used music from YouTube and recorded the music from one iPad to another, transferring this to the GarageBand app.
They would then press on the plus button which gives them a new section to record and they would record their next vocals, adding in more music. They would repeat this process until their podcast was finished.
They learned how to edit their podcast using the split section and could move or delete parts they wanted to change. They then saved their final versions and airdropped them to myself as a song file (.mp4) Using the AnchorFM site I was then able to create a podcast and add each child’s recording to this.
What was the impact?
Impact on the pupils was increased motivation, as it was new way of recording what they had learned. The children had to learn independently as they worked their way through learning the features of GarageBand.
In terms of pupil choice the children could decide what information they wanted to include, how they wanted their podcast to sound and what music etc they wanted to use. The pupils led their learning on this project which was great to see how they worked when faced with challenges, encouraged resilience and also challenge.
The impact on me as a teacher was that I had to learn a new skill, enough to be confident enough to support the children but also allow the children to develop new skills without my support. I was then able to assess what they had learned by observing their partner work, skills etc and by listening to their podcasts to see what they had learned about The Battle of Culloden. I was then able to share my practise with my colleagues, essentially my job share partner so she could support the children on my days out of class. I also worked with Connected Falkirk for support in developing my original idea of creating a podcast so collaborating with external colleagues..
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Pupil Voice
“I learned how to take notes from a podcast and use these to create my own script with a partner. I learned a lot about the history of Scotland and The Battle of Culloden being the last battle on Biritish soil.” -SB
“I didn’t know a lot about The Battle of Culloden so it was good to learn about it from both sides using primary and secondary sources. I also learned how to edit Garage Band as I only ever used this to making songs etc.” NM
“Writing a script was difficult, as I wanted to make it interesting to my reader but also factual, it was had to get the balance right to entertain my audience. In our pairs we had to make sure it sounded like a conversation rather than a prepared script, which was difficult as we had only just completed our research on The Battle of Culloden.” CH
Where next?
Would definitely repeat this lesson using another platform/topic. The children were so engaged and motivated it is something I would do again, maybe looking at developing our knowledge of GarageBand. I will also use this with my digital leaders so that they can showcase this to other year groups. I have volunteered to run a CLPL event for colleagues on how to create their own podcast and encourage them to use this in their teaching.
