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Education Podcast Listeners - What Topics are of Interest? Who Do You Want to Hear From?


As mentioned in my most recent post, my friend Tim Pope and I have restarted our education podcast, 180days.education. So far, under the direction of our producer/editor, Quinn Greenhaus, we have come up with a consistent schedule, which includes releasing our episodes on a regular basis (the 2nd and 4th Thursday's of every month), along with releasing a monthly Newsletter (the 2nd Thursday of each month) that gives some insight into what the episodes for the month hold. We already had show-notes, but we have now made them more of a blog-type post, where you can listen to the episode and also read more about the episode and find any resources or links that are mentioned in each episode. We also are using some better tools for our recordings that make it easier for Quinn to edit each episode. 

We use to use Audacity for recording, which is a perfectly fine tool, however we had to send our interviewees directions for downloading and saving the audio files and it had more potential for error. Now we use Zencastr, which is a simple web-link that everyone logs on with, and everyone's audio is recorded separately (and now also video if you want....that may be down the road!) Another lesson learned is it's worth it to pay for the subscriptions/services instead of only working with the 'free' options. As I am an independent contractor, I can use these as business expenses. Long story short, we've made a lot of changes - new website, new recording software, new equipment (high-quality microphone, boom arm, noise cancelling headset, newer, faster computer, etc.), paying for some social media 'ads' to try and garner some attention and followers. I would say this revamped podcast has us much more dedicated and excited.


One major change is every episode has a guest (or more than one), chosen because of a specific interest or question we were curious about. Tim and I are now just asking questions, and listening to others experiences and expertise, with of course some relevant commentary thrown in as it comes up. Personally, I enjoy this approach so much more than our previous approach, where we would pick a topic, each do research, and then try to share and disseminate the information we found. That type of format was a lot more stressful, since we were trying to be 'experts' on topics that we might have only had a passing understanding of previously. It is so much more exciting and interesting to let true experts do the talking - I feel so much more relaxed and involved in the episodes because I am learning as I listen. While I do research before each interview so that I have some questions at the ready, I do find that most of my questions come up organically, as I am listening to what they are saying. It feels much more like a conversation instead of an interview, and what I also love is that while we may have a specific 'topic' or interest we focus on, the interviews always end up being more or go off in unexpected directions. 

Here are the guests and topics we have had so far in our 2nd Season (by Episode):
  1. Supporting Teachers & Students through a Pandemic - Ismael Zamora
  2. Teaching Through a Pandemic with Anne Marie Owings
  3. Being Culturally Responsive in Education with Ken Shelton
  4. Environmental Literacy - Building Our Understanding of Interdependence with Karen Cowe
  5. Rights of the Learner - Rehumanizing Classrooms with Olga Torres
  6. Creating Equitable mathematics Achievement with Dr. Pamela Seda
This month our focus is on instructional tools and curriculum materials. Our two guests talk about their experiences with developing quality curriculum versus open education resources and share their journeys. Dr. Steve Sullivan discusses higher education and Anatomy & Physiology using digital tools, and Patrick Vennebush discusses math curriculum and resources. We have upcoming episodes in May, June and July that discuss systemic change, teaching abroad, being Black (student, coach, teacher, mentor) in America and in education, and running for school board, to name a few.

To say that our revamped podcast is more fun for Tim and I is an understatement. It is such a pleasure to talk with all this folks who are so dedicated to whatever area of education they are speaking about, and to get insight into areas that we may know nothing about or that we know something, but are hearing a different perspective. We would LOVE to have even more variety in guests and topics (we tend to be a bit math centric, since this is both Tim and my backgrounds), so I wanted to put this out there to any of you in the education field - whether that be teacher, administrator, education resource provider, assessment provider, parent, student - what are topics of interest? And who do you want us to interview? I am not afraid to reach out to education leaders/pioneers I don't know and ask them to be guests - the worse they can do is say no, right?

So - please take some time to fill out this quick survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8PFYMS9

Be sure to visit the 180days.education website - leave us a voice message, check out all our episodes from Season 1 and Season 2, and subscribe!!

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