5 Topics for Student Podcasts

Podcasting can be a great way to get students to record their own thoughts and to record conversations with other people like classmates or community members. Just like a writing assignment it can be hard for students to decide what to podcast about. Here's a handful of suggestions to get started.

• Book review. Rather than writing a book report, have students record their thoughts about books they've recently read.
  
• DIY or Q&A podcast. Students are knowledgeable about lots of things. Ask them to share their knowledge about a favorite topic.
  
• Conversations in a second language. This can be a good way for students to practice a second language with a partner.
  
• School news. Students can record school announcements. Let them add to it with commentary about neat things happening in your school community.
  
• Conversations about community. Instead of the traditional "interview your parents about their lives" journalism assignment, have students talk to a few people about important moments in the history of their local communities. 

If you want to learn how to start a podcast and get more ideas for using podcasts in your classroom, join me on Tuesday at 7pm ET for Classroom Podcasting 101. 

How to Host an Online Meeting With Zoom

In my recent post titled Tips and Tools for Teaching Remotely I mentioned using Zoom to host online classes if Google Hangouts Meet or Microsoft Teams aren't available to you. I've used Zoom's free plan for about five years and it has been more than adequate for one-on-one and small group meetings. Zoom's free plan lets you have up to 100 people in a meeting for up to 40 minutes.

One of my favorite features of Zoom is that you set your account to default to recording all meetings as soon as they start. That way you don't forget to record the meeting. The meeting recording will save on computer. The recording can be uploaded to YouTube, Vimeo, or any file sharing service that you like to use to distribute files to your students.

In the following video I demonstrate how to schedule and host online meetings with Zoom.