Class Podcasting with Anchor.fm

Four years ago, I had the privilege of teaching British Literature in summer school. If you're new here, you need to know that all of my experience is as a math teacher, so this was a dramatic departure from my usual teaching and planning flow. 

However, the year before, I'd had the privilege of teaching Government (this all because my degree and 1st Missouri certification was actually in secondary social studies, but that's a whole other blog post #checkyourprivilege). The year before in Government, I had recorded and published our class discussions on a podcast, and I was quite pleased with how it had gone, so I was excited at this opportunity for more discussion in a literature class. 

I had really high hopes for these Brit Lit recordings, so I got it all set up here, published my intentions, and added a new side panel on this blog linking to it. 

And I never published them. 

Through the beauty of Google Classroom archives and Google Drive, I actually still have all of those recordings, so I'm going to take the opportunity of a question this week from a colleague about podcasting to correct a wrong from 4 years ago and publish these "Brit Lit Perspectives" using the Anchor app.

Here was my colleague's email:

I'm developing a performance assessment for a grad class, as well as an actual end of unit assessment for my students. I found the site "Anchor" which I am really excited about and seems very easy to use. 

However, I have some questions about how students post:

Are there sites that allow me to control content or do all students need to have their own individual podcasts?

This particular site seems like everyone would need to have their own account, using their school gmail, but then I would have no control over posting. Or, all students would have to use my account to post through, and that also doesn't seem productive.  

The way I understood it, she wanted an easy way to gather students' audio files and get them published while still being able to control and censor content as necessary. 

I've been a guest on an Anchor hosted podcast with Connected Learning, so I know it was simple, and a quick Google search verified that you could upload/import audio files to your Anchor account on the web or the app, so this was the suggestion I replied to my friend, the future podcaster: 

1.Have students record their clip with their smartphone or use the site https://online-voice-recorder.com/

2. Students turn in their file to you on Canvas. 

3. You preview as necessary

4. You upload to the anchor app or website the audio files from your account.

I would do it this way because (1) I think you're more likely to get a file turned in to Canvas than waiting on kids to upload to Anchor (and kids don't have another thing to login to), (2) it allows you to preview content for quality and appropriateness, (3) keeps kids from having to "use your account" (I could see one student's files accidentally getting deleted by another) and (4) gives you one place to show off your students' work when you share to a public audience.

Here's how that actually went for me...

1. Sign up for Anchor.fm

 Easy enough...they have the option to make an account or use Facebook, Google, Twitter, or Apple. I used Google, just in case you care. LOL

2. Getting started

What a friendly start page! I can do this! Also, I find myself oddly attracted to the "money" button. LOL. Looks like I need to click the purple button. 

3. Building your podcast

This is the stage where my process (and probably my friend's process, also) are going to be slightly different than "typical" because I will be pulling my old files from Google Drive (and her probably from Canvas, our new LMS because...COVID). For now, though, I am going to record a little preview/trailer blurb. (I'm loving the UI on this page, by the way.)

4. Recording your audio

As I remember, most of the student files you will hear once I publish on Anchor will be from the mic on the iPads I was using, so there will be a ton of ambient noise and the volume levels will vary. This was in part a matter of logistics and design - I wanted them to partner up, so even if they had earbuds with an inline mic, they couldn't use it. I would suggest NOW that you and your students use earbuds with a built in mic, or (if you're really serious about audio) a plug in USB mic. 

This page says they can hear me...I don't know how, so I tested it anyway. (It was correct. My audio was fine.)

My clip was recorded. AND I CAN ADD BACKGROUND MUSIC RIGHT NOW? That's a bonus feature I did not expect that renders useless my somewhat less than amateur skill at mixing audio tracks. Oh well. :)

5. Time to publish your episode!

After saving my episode by clicking on the purple button at the top, I came here to title and give a synopsis. If you a podcast fan, your favorite podcast might also give "show notes." I suspect this is also where I would post those. 

6. Finalizing your podcast details

I'd already named the podcast (although now "Brit Lit Perspectives" feels super lame), but choosing a category proved harder than I suspected. Good news is, it probably doesn't really matter. LOL

7. Cover Art

It's like judging a book by its cover...it's not "good" to do, but everyone does it anyway. 

Choose a photo, or upload your own. If you're feeling cute, you'll make something in Canva real quick. At first I picked the "Choose one for me" option, which seemed good enough, but Canva is just so easy, it's a crime to NOT use.

For real..I was able to make this in 5 minutes.

Too late for me now, but I could have done most of what I just made in Canva on this screen. Moving on!

8. Distribution

When I did this year's ago with Government Class and He REALLY Said That, getting your podcast on iTunes and other devices was a thing you had to Google and hope you did correctly. Now, you click a button. Beautiful.

9. You Have a Podcast Now

I clicked on the dashboard button and that's it! I'm a podcaster again! I appreciate the feedback this "Welcome to Anchor!" checklist gave me.

10. Adding your students' audio

This is what you really want to do!

1. Start a NEW episode and record an intro, setting up your listeners for that pure, silky student-created content.
2. Go to Google Drive, Classroom, Canvas, or whatever LMS or saving situation you are using for students' assignments and use the uploader to add the files as clips to your episode.
3. For an added touch of quality, use the transitions tab to drag over clips that smooth the transition from one students submission to the next.

11. Final Touches

I clicked save with my episode of students audio and got back to the episode details. Hey! This is where I get to specify the season and episode number! Another Anchor win. So easy.

12. Sharing is caring!

Okay, so obviously I want to share this now. Looks like I can share using these buttons as one option. 

Using "public site" seems good for posting back to your class website or LMS, (Canvas, Google Classroom, etc) and for spamming all of your friends and family via DM and email.

13. The final product

Look how good that public page above looks! I can't believe how easy this was...all of this work was about 2 and a half hours, and that includes the screenshots and commentary for this blog!

https://anchor.fm/chuck-baker3/episodes/Why-do-we-study-Brit-Lit-ehlent/a-a2s2g1o

ClassBadges.com and Standards-Based Grading

The badge art I uploaded.

 Kids LOVE competing, right?

What I appreciate about the grading reform away from A-F that we've seen the last several years is that there is less comparison between letter grades amongst students and more emphasis on "what do you know?" More students have a chance to be the "smart" ones because their failure on Standard X does not always mean they will fail on Standard Y, which traditional letter grades can suggest and sometimes lead to.

However, standards based grading can get a little black-and-white cut and dry sometimes, and kids can get overwhelmed by charts, so why not gamify your students' standards growth and get your kids to compete with each other than against?

This summer I was "strongly encouraged" to use Accelerated Math, a system we use mainly for intervention during the school year. AM is an adaptive, differentiated learning system that links in with the STAR assessments which everyone in the district uses for benchmarking. I'd been previously trained on AM, but never actually used it myself, but one thing I'd remembered from my colleagues' feedback was that AM is a great program for kids that can set goals, kids that can pace their work, and kids that can monitor their own on-task behavior. As I mentioned in my last post about summer school, these are not usually qualities I see in my students, so to mitigate the summer being a total disaster for 3/4 of my class, I decided to use classbadges.com to track their objective mastery (and other, more PBIS-type accomplishments as well.)

Above you'll see all of the badges I created to award to the students. Technically our program this summer is "credit recovery," so they need only to get 60% or higher (the black token) on the objectives I assign in Accelerated Math, but I knew some kids would work harder to get better badges (just like someone might spend hours getting a certain achievement in a video game), so I made the grey "master" badge for 80%, and the gold "expert" badge for 95% scores on an objective.

I'm still going to work on more traditional goal-setting with my students, and today's early results with the Pomodoro Technique were positive, but these badges were a fun way to give a few kids an extra, whimsical incentive.

5 Reasons Why Teaching Summer School is Good for Professional Development

I'm beginning my 6th edition of summer school for my district on Monday. My first summer, before we had children and my wife was still working, summer school was a means to cut my teeth in my own real-life math classroom before the fall semester began and stuff got real. 

Teaching summer school is more of a financial requirement for our family now, but there are still several things I enjoy about the summer session that I think make me a better teacher.

1. "Do your worst."

If you can handle what summer school students have to throw at you, you'll probably be prepared for the worst you may see during the regular session. Some summer school students are highly motivated (which is what I expected of all of them before my first summer), and they are a delight, but most in my district come to me with one or several of the following: immaturity, frustration, anger, dejection, ambivalence, complacency. I jumped over a table last summer in the midst of what was looked to be a fight brewing. It was awesome.

2. Try new things.

The thinking on this is that for most of these kids, whatever traditional activities you or a colleague tried during the spring or fall were not successful strategies, so repackaging the regular curriculum into a shorter chunk is asking for boredom at best, and more failure at worst. I feel less pressure to have my lessons or activities go perfectly during the summer because classes are smaller and we meet longer, so its more feasible to clarify directions and completely change course if necessary without sacrificing an entire day's 50 minute period.

I love piloting projects, games, and software in the summer.

3. Motivate, motivate, motivate.

This is for my students, too, but secretly maybe for me the most. :)

There aren't a ton of self-starting, goal-setting 16 and 17 year olds to begin with - you're definitely not going to find them in summer school. Teaching my summer students forces me to rethink why I teach, and what heights are possible for any of these students. 

Morning-grump-Chuck does not fly in summer session.

4. Make new connections with colleagues

Since my district consolidated summer school for our 3 high schools into one building 3 years ago, summer school has meant working more closely with teachers I only see on sporadic district PD days. Collaborating with these teachers during the summer has given me a clearer picture of what goes on across my district and helps me make sense of goals and vision given to us from administration across the street. Most of the trainings on this page were made possible by connections I made during summer school.

5. Prioritize and dump.

You know that practice where you teach some things during the regular school year "for exposure," just because its in your book, or you like that trick? 

Reteaching an entire semester's worth of content is obviously impossible, so the summer session requires refinement of the curriculum to essential topics and strategies. Fortunately for me, my district already has separate pacing guides for the summer, so I don't have to reinvent the wheel every summer.

This year, to cut costs, our district is holding only "credit recovery" courses, which the state allows for students who were close to passing. My class will be 2 weeks instead of the usual 4, so I'm forced to prioritize and predict where the biggest needs will be amongst my recovering students.

Why does this matter for the regular session? The topics we end up covering in summer school often become the subject of smart goals and data collection from common formative assessments in our PLCs.