Are you ready to redefine your classroom with technology? Tap into the genius of Charlie Giannone, a groundbreaking New York educator and podcast host, as we explore his innovative approach to teaching. You're in for a thrilling ride as he recounts his experience of creating a weekly TV show with his fourth-grade students, and how it transformed their learning experience. Discover how this creative project not only changed the classroom culture but also boosted student engagement. He also prepares us for the potential challenges of implementing such a project and how technology can make it easier.
Charlie then takes us on a journey through the world of podcasts. As an experienced podcast host, Charlie has the inside scoop on the best podcasts for educators and how to maximize their benefits. Learn how to find the right podcasts, draw the most value from them, and even use them as a teaching tool. The cherry on top? Charlie's personal experience of using his podcast as a way to inspire and motivate other educators. So, sit back and let Charlie's story inspire you to merge tech and teaching in ways you've never imagined before. Don't forget to check out the show notes to find the link to Charlie's insightful blog post on podcast recommendations for educators. Let's get started!
Read Charlie's Blog: CurriculumAssociates.com/blog/listen-on-the-go
Follow us on Twitter: @CurriculumAssoc
Follow us on Instagram: @MyiReady
Have feedback, questions, or want to be a guest? Email ExtraordinaryEducators@cainc.com to connect with us!
Are you ready to redefine your classroom with technology? Tap into the genius of Charlie Giannone, a groundbreaking New York educator and podcast host, as we explore his innovative approach to teaching. You're in for a thrilling ride as he recounts his experience of creating a weekly TV show with his fourth-grade students, and how it transformed their learning experience. Discover how this creative project not only changed the classroom culture but also boosted student engagement. He also prepares us for the potential challenges of implementing such a project and how technology can make it easier.
Charlie then takes us on a journey through the world of podcasts. As an experienced podcast host, Charlie has the inside scoop on the best podcasts for educators and how to maximize their benefits. Learn how to find the right podcasts, draw the most value from them, and even use them as a teaching tool. The cherry on top? Charlie's personal experience of using his podcast as a way to inspire and motivate other educators. So, sit back and let Charlie's story inspire you to merge tech and teaching in ways you've never imagined before. Don't forget to check out the show notes to find the link to Charlie's insightful blog post on podcast recommendations for educators. Let's get started!
Read Charlie's Blog: CurriculumAssociates.com/blog/listen-on-the-go
Follow us on Twitter: @CurriculumAssoc
Follow us on Instagram: @MyiReady
Have feedback, questions, or want to be a guest? Email ExtraordinaryEducators@cainc.com to connect with us!
Curriculum Associates presents the Extraordinary Educators Podcast with host Danielle Sullivan and Sari Laberis. Hear tips, best practices, and successes to improve your teaching and leadership and drive student growth and learning. We're here for you.
Danielle Sullivan:Hello everyone, welcome to the Extraordinary Educator Podcast. I'm Danielle.
Sari Laberis:And I'm Sari. This week we are joined by Charlie, Extraordinary Educator in New York, who has his own podcast and recently wrote a blog that we will link in the show notes about podcast recommendations for educators, which I highly recommend you read through and take a listen to the ones he suggested, and we talked to him about the idea of doing some sort of TV show or podcast with students.
Danielle Sullivan:And it was so great because he was doing this before all the new technology is out and he really sounds like he created a very fun show with his fourth graders. And, speaking of podcasts, if you want to read more about his podcast recommendations, please share this podcast with your friends and subscribe. It would really help us out. We'd really appreciate it. If you want to leave a review and I hope you enjoy listening to Charlie's episode around all cool things that you can do with your students.
Sari Laberis:Hey Charlie, thanks so much for being here. Great to have you back on the podcast.
Charlie Giannone:Oh, I'm very excited to be back on.
Danielle Sullivan:So, Charlie, last time we talked to you we found out that you had your own podcast, and since then we've interviewed several educators who have been excited about doing a podcast with their students, or some have tried to use different types of technology with students. So can you just tell us like, have you ever tried to do a podcast with students or another form of technological engagement with students, and how did it go?
Charlie Giannone:Well, I've honestly have thought about doing a podcast with my class. Last year actually a lot I thought about it on the regular because in the past, when I taught older kids, I used to have a TV show, a talk show, and it was called the Weekly Review and it was very much like a daily show kind of show and I would, you know, put some jokes in there and scour for some topical humor that the kids would enjoy. But what I did was I had the kids write their own news articles. So there was the weekly lunch review and the kids had to talk about the lunch and they would comment about which lunch was their favorite lunch. One kid had to give a weather report, so they looked at the weather and gave a weekend weather update and then they had to add some ideas about what you could do over the weekend's weather whether it's raining, staying indoors, if it was nice, go out and play.
Charlie Giannone:We did like a weekly review of what we learned. So one of the kids would pick something we learned about and they wrote about it, and then I'd have the interest topics and the kids would just write about whatever they wanted to write about but then share it and then we had guests come in, we had a class, I had a producer, we had editors, so I kind of got the kids involved into the production of our show. And this was before smart boards were around and streaming things. So we just did it for ourselves in our class. But now, with the advent of all this technology in our classrooms, the idea of streaming it and providing it for parents to see and to listen to is something that's kind of been in the back of my mind. So doing a podcast is a little bit easier than running a whole show and it's something I have thought about, but I haven't yet crossed that threshold.
Danielle Sullivan:Well, first of all, wow, that sounds amazing and I'm impressed that you did that before the ease of technology and smartphones and you can edit things with a click of a button on your phone nowadays. But two questions. One, would you ever think about doing the show again? And secondly, what are some considerations that are maybe stopping you or are having you pause about a podcast?
Charlie Giannone:I would really enjoy doing the show again. I did do it with the older kids fourth graders very successfully and now I teach younger kids and I did have the fourth graders do a lot of the heavy lifting. I created the framework and then they were really involved and some kids naturally picked up some of the roles a little bit better than others. So you had some kids to kind of lean on but you tried to get everyone involved and with some of the responsibilities and work and life as a teacher, giving the kids the responsibilities is really a lot easier for sustainability. So I haven't really tried the whole show again with the younger kids.
Charlie Giannone:But a podcast is actually a little bit simpler because it's just you, the kid and some microphones and you could just talk.
Charlie Giannone:Whatever you want your show to be about, you can do that. So that is something that is very feasible to do with the younger kids Because it's just talking and plus they're not in front of an audience and they're just easier to talk because it's just a conversation between two people or three people or four people however many kids you want on your show at one time. The harder part would be the back end of how the magic happens. You know, on our podcast a lot of times we'll stop, we'll talk to the guests and we're like, hey, you're seeing how the sausage is made, because there's a lot of background that goes on to a production of any type. So finding time in your life to maybe edit and put your podcast together is probably a little bit more of the commitment that, as a teacher, making a podcast with students you really have to think about, especially with younger kids that aren't able to do the editing that is required to do.
Sari Laberis:Right, it's like there's the part that the kids are partaking and then there's also the whole other back end piece that I'm assuming younger elementary students can't upload the recordings to the server and all that and getting it out there. But I'm curious when you did the TV show, what was the impact of that on the relationships with your students and each other or your classroom culture? Like kind of, what successes did you find in working on that together?
Charlie Giannone:That was so much fun. Honestly, I regret and I feel terrible right now thinking about it that I haven't tried again with the younger kids. We had so much fun and we did it weekly. It was Friday afternoon at the end of the day we picked out, I gave out parts, so the executive producer always picked that week's guest. So there was a little form letter, they had to fill it out, they had to deliver it, and I would invite that teacher in and then some other kid the day of would send tickets to the classroom and then there would be someone at the door collecting tickets.
Charlie Giannone:It was all hands on deck and, like I said, some kids really like to doing ahead. This one girl name is Sophia, that really like doing the human interest story. So every week she submitted something about something she was interested in and every week and then I would pass it to another kid hey, edit what Sophia wrote, see what she said, make suggestions. So I was trying to incorporate my ELA skills in there. Having kids write, then having kids edit, then having kids revise, and then the public speaking of it all getting up in front. So it really did help some kids crack out of that shell of being shy and nowadays there's a lot going on and being shy isn't necessarily super helpful in the classroom to participate in.
Charlie Giannone:Some kids don't want to jump in. So creating an opportunity where the kids are comfortable and used to it and it kind of became a routine where at first they might have not had the courage to want to jump in and then some of them are like, oh, I want to do it, I want to be the weather man, I want to do the lunch thing, I want to do a human interest piece. And then some kids would be hey, Mr. G, I did this awesome thing this weekend. I really want to do it for the show. So it had kids thinking about and anticipating something we were doing in the class, which is always fun. You know it gets the kids excited about doing school work. You know you trick them into doing things.
Danielle Sullivan:Charlie, you're getting me excited to want to go back in the classroom and run a whole show. I mean, I know that you said that you're you're not necessarily doing that with your younger students, but this is so valuable for anyone listening because someone like me I was a very outside the box thinker, creative teacher that didn't think that was possible. So I feel like you just gave permission to all of our listeners to just remind you that you can do it and it is interdisciplinary. I mean the fact that you did with fourth graders. I would think that fourth graders was too young, but that's so great. Can we watch it? Is it like live anywhere?
Charlie Giannone:No, like I said, I did that show before the age of streaming. I didn't even have a smart board back then. I literally had to hook up a data projector to my computer. It was wires all over the classroom. I had to like go to the library and be like "can I borrow the projector on Fridays?"
Charlie Giannone:So I have a standing reservation. But it all goes back to my comfortability with the technology. That kind of allowed me to jump into this. So nowadays, with the idea of everyone has a smartboard in their classroom, it's so easy to make a Google slide of a screen and the kids just stand next to it. So the idea of having the technology so available, ready, available, it's really easy to do.
Charlie Giannone:It wasn't a lot of work in my day to get the kids to get prepared for the show and, once again, once you make anything a routine, the kids learned very quickly what to do and then eventually sometimes they would ad-lib along the way or they would suggest, because during the guest interview I always did jokes and we always joked around and the kids were always in on it and we would sometimes make questions specifically. The kids would be like oh, I know this about such a teacher. Can you ask them this question? So the kids did get in on wanting to help the back end of the show and things like that and I would ask them when I had their human interest piece, I'm like "you want to show a picture, so I would have to sit there and Google image and back then it was like super safe search time. So it's like you had to like your heart beat every time you opened up Google image to find something that was mildly related to what the kid wanted to show. So I remember there was a couple of times where I was just like, oh, geez, but um, you know, I got through.
Charlie Giannone:But nowadays the tech part is actually really easy now streaming it to have everyone else enjoy. That's the part that I personally don't have the experience with and figuring out how to stream live. But I do know in my school district one of my co-teachers that I know he actually is the co-host of our podcast. His whole building does their morning announcements, kind of like a TV show on the smart board. So when they do their morning announcements they actually stream it on the smart boards in the classroom and you do the pledge, just like I said, morning announcements. So it is possible, you know. You just have to get in touch with your IT department to make the magic happen.
Danielle Sullivan:I mean, by the way, Charlie, I bet your first grader could show you how to stream something at this point.
Charlie Giannone:Yes, well, you know, there's also a lot of one thing there's a lot of legal issues that are involved. So you have to make sure that you have your photograph permissions and that you're allowed to stream things through your district. So I always say, before you jump in and to any sort of broadcasting stuff with your children, you really do have to make sure you know what your school policy and your district's policies are behind those things.
Sari Laberis:Really important note there and I think once you have that all squared away, you have the permissions that the legal parts taking care of.
Sari Laberis:It's really inspiring to know that you don't have to have the answers to everything. But you have been doing this for a while and you did the TV show, but you still have things that you want to do differently or do better, and so I'm sure for our listeners, this was really inspiring, and Charlie did mention his own podcast. We will link in the show notes, as well as a really great blog that he just wrote about podcast recommendations for teachers. So please be sure to check that out, and that is unfortunately all the time we have for today, Charlie. So thank you so much for coming back on and sharing your expertise and insights with us. Get inspired by following us on social media and please tag us in your posts on Twitter at @curriculumassoc, and on Instagram @ my iReady. If you have feedback about the podcast, a topic of interest, or want to be a guest, email extraordinary educators@ cainc. com. Subscribe where you listen to podcasts, and if you'd like to help more educators like you, join the conversation.
Danielle Sullivan:Please leave a review and remember, be you, be true, be extraordinary. The Extraordinary Educators podcast is produced by Curriculum Associates. Editing by Whiteboard Geeks, social media by Atziri Hannon, guest booking by Sari Laberis, production by Hayley Browning. This podcast is copyright, material and intellectual property of Curriculum Associates.