I am a HUGE podcast fan. A few of my favorites are This American Life, Radiolab, and Planet Money, but that wasn’t always the case. I love comics, and movies, and good T.V., but the allure of a podcast had generally evaded me. Isn’t radio over? I probably never would have given them a chance, but a good friend practically forced me to listen to an episode of This American Life about Harper High School in Chicago. If you haven’t, please go listen to this two part episode right now. Go ahead. I'll wait.
Mind blown? I know.
I’ve worked in Ed Tech for the last three years, and although I feel very in tune with the ebb and flow of school life (or at least the ebb and flow of data), the struggles that the students and faculty faced were portrayed so colorfully, so emotionally, that it moved me, and I have been listening to podcasts ever since. Then I started thinking, are there any podcasts solely for K-12 education?
The first podcast I stumbled across was The Teacher’s Lounge. They currently have 61 episodes on various education related discussions. Some examples of what you can find on this podcast are surviving spring fever, encouraging student blogging, and solution based teaching. These episodes average about ten to thirty minutes, which is just about perfect on the way to work.
EdNext is also a great weekly podcast currently with 39 episodes. These episodes are also on the short side which is great for me, because depending on the topic my mind will start to wander about fifteen minutes into a podcast. One of EdNext’s recent episodes was “How to Tackle Chronic Absenteeism”. Quite interesting, and something we talk a lot about in my line of work. In fact, I highly recommend that particular episode.
Talks With Teachers is yet another podcast with a hefty amount of episodes. They actually have quite a few short “bumper” episodes that average around six minutes. These are super convenient, and give you something to reflect on throughout your day.
There are tons of educational podcasts out there, and many are very specific in their subject matter. So get out there and challenge your brain while you are shopping, showering, or doing whatever it is you do!
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