Podcasting for our program
December 10, 2019
Ann Arbor Public Schools’ Parent Teacher Organization always works to promote learning in their schools. This year, the PTO has sponsored podcasting equipment for Huron’s journalism program.
“The PTO is awesome,” Journalism adviser Sara-Beth Badalamente said. “Every year teachers can apply for a grant, and every year I apply for something. I’ve gotten digital voice recorders, I’ve gotten sky panels, and camera equipment. But this year, I went for the podcasting equipment.”
Badalamente works to promote a positive environment in her classroom as well as offer as many options to her students.
“I don’t want to pressure students to do things that they’re not interested in; I like to suggest options, but for something like podcasting you need kids with passion,” Badalamente said.“I had a couple of kids take a podcasting class over the summer, and they rocked it. They were like, ‘we want equipment.’ so I wrote the grant.”
Badalamente also knows that podcasting can help boost the journalism program’s prestige and make the program more competitive.
“I think that with students they’re very busy, while I want everybody to read for pleasure, people are always on the move,” Badalamente.“So this will allow for kids to be able to listen to our reports to the stories that we’re telling, and to get more information out.”
Podcasts have become increasingly popular and now many high school journalism programs are producing their own podcasts for their students.
“I think a lot of this was inspired by seeing what other news outlets are doing across the nation,” Badalamente said. “This isn’t new, but just having the equipment to make it high-quality and professional was something that I was thinking about.”
Now that Badalamente’s students have the equipment, the students are excited to use the podcasting equipment in different ways.
“There’s a lot of trusts you put into a student to do something live, the goal is that everybody will try their hand at it and now that I’ve got the equipment I can create a curriculum for everybody,” Badalamente said. “I think the more ways you can get information out the better off you’re going to be, because everybody wants to consume their news differently.”
