Merrick's Birch School stays current with dynamic Podcast Club
Students share their voices and ideas on a range of topics
If you’re up-to-date on modern technology trends, it’s likely you’re familiar with podcasts — digital audio files shared on computers and mobile devices, usually focusing on one topic, with several episodes presented like a series.
In the past few years, podcasts have become immensely popular, even though they first sprang up on the internet in 2004. Podcasters are current, captivating, and use storytelling skills to keep people informed, and listening.
At Birch School in the Merrick Union Free School District, lead technology teacher Melissa Froehlich saw the medium’s potential and came up with the idea of a Podcast Club, to loop some of her older students into one of the internet’s biggest crazes. Now students meet during their lunch periods on a rotating basis, and in small groups, create podcasts about things that are important to kids like them.
Froehlich has been teaching in the district since 2013, first as a permanent substitute, she said, before the technology teacher’s position opened up seven years ago. The Podcast Club is open only to fifth- and sixth-grade students, which is something of a full-circle moment for Froehlich, who has been teaching her now oldest students since they were in kindergarten.
She came up with the idea for the club as a way to do something different from the school’s traditional Newspaper Club. “I had seen online (that) different technology teachers and librarians had podcast clubs, and I was like, this would be great,” she recalled. “I feel like it’s so current.”
The club had a fall session, which was immensely popular, and is now in the midst of its spring session, with different students. To create the podcasts, the kids record their audio on Apple’s Voice Memo app on iPads, edit the sound bites together, and rerecord when necessary. When a podcast is complete, it gets uploaded to the district’s website.
Molly McGovern, a sixth-grader, said she joined the club to improve her interviewing skills. “Just in case I do something that’s a podcast when I grow up, or do interviews,” she said, “I know exactly what to do and where to get my plans from.”
Molly is working with her friends Jillian Miller and Gabriella Layne on a social media-themed podcast, showcasing dangers kids their age should be aware of on the internet.
“I interview people asking them how they feel about cyberbullying, and everyone agrees it’s not a good thing,” Gabriella said. “This podcast is about the internet, and how it’s bad.”
Jillian focuses on safety on the internet, and teaching kids how to be aware of what’s online. “If you make a TikTok and you’re wearing a Birch School hoody, it’s public,” she said. “People would know where you go to school, and that you live around that area.
“I think the message we want to get out there is that we want people to be safe,” Jillian added. “I just want people to know that anything can happen if you have a public account, and you should definitely be careful about what you post and what you chat. If something goes the wrong way, anything can happen.”
Another group of sixth-graders, Madeline Brennan, Hayley Bennett, Emerson Charney and Gracie Becak, created a podcast called “Birch School Wonders.” They go around the school, asking students in every grade what their most pressing question is — on any topic — and try to answer it in an episode of the podcast.
The girls said they joined the club together to work on something that other kids would be interested in. “I think we all wanted to kind of do something together, build our friendship,” Madeline said, “and also teach people something.”
Hayley said the club has helped her sharpen her public-speaking skills. “I really wanted to do it to get better at public speaking, because I do lots of theater, and I like speaking in front of crowds,” she said. “If you speak on a podcast, then you really have to express what you’re saying.”
A third group of sixth-graders, Gavin Jurek, Griffin Kelson, Daniel Kaden and Justin Isaac, are working on an NFL-themed podcast, which covers everything from game recaps to offseason trades to predictions for future seasons.
Froehlich said that technology programs in schools are changing to encompass the latest trends. All of the students in the club were excited about working on a podcast, she said, because they’ve seen their parents, and even characters on televisions shows they like, listening to them, too.
Some of the other things their classmates are working on include 3D printing, programming robots, and even learning how to fly drones. “It’s way more of a digital push,” Froehlich said of Merrick’s program.
She is still working with the district to figure out the best place to post the podcasts, and it’s likely they’ll end up on a section of the district site called the Student Corner. Fall podcasts will be rolled out first, once a spot online is figured out, followed by spring podcasts later this year.
To listen, once they’re uploaded, go to Merrick.SyntaxNY.com.
