Many of us love to listen to podcasts, but have you ever considered what it takes to make one?

Many people don’t know where to begin when it comes to making a podcast. That’s why people like John Quinn teach students how to begin. John Quinn has been working at NHS for 29 years and has been teaching the podcasting class for four years. 

In the Intro to Podcasting and Audio Storytelling class, Quinn gives the students prompts to help them come up with ideas for podcasts 

According to the program of studies, “This class is designed to introduce students to the art of podcasting. Students will learn techniques for writing stories and interview questions, how to choose sounds or music that will best support a story, and how to mix and edit sound clips into a cohesive finished product.” 

Therefore, Quinn said his favorite part is sitting with the students and talking about what is going on in the world.

“My favorite part about it is sitting with the students after they have written their scripts and recorded their podcasts to get their take on the world, what it is they think is going on. I also like it because I‘m working with kids who are creating content, which is a really, really big thing these days, you know, people creating their own content and putting it out on the worldwide web, and I’m working with the kids to teach them on how to do that, and that’s really fun,” said Quinn. 

Creating the class and its year-long curriculum was a big task for Quinn since podcasting is a fairly new form of media. 

“Podcasting only existed since about 2004, and there are not a lot of textbooks out there. So the way I structure it is: I look at what’s popular, what people enjoy looking at in the world, what kind of stories they like. and so I kind of group all of my lessons on prompts that are based on real-life podcasts and the kinds of things that people like to hear,” he said.

The podcasting class is flexible for students. It allows them to do their work independently without help from the teacher unless they need it.

“It’s a lot of independent work. So students come to class. I lecture a little bit, maybe five or ten minutes, I model some things, and then they work either in groups or independently to create their stories. It’s very similar to the kind of work, maybe, kids do in the TV studio as well,” Quinn said.

To help the students think of what they want to write a podcast about, Quinn gives them prompts.

“I always give prompts, but they’re not necessarily required. If the students have a better idea for themselves, they can pitch that, but I always try to provide something. So they absolutely can come up with the ideas on their own, but it’s a long year, and so it’s kind of a mix, a kid will come up with some of their ideas, and some of them some of the times they’ll just follow my prompt and ideas that I give them. But whenever they have their own idea, I really applaud that and try to give them opportunities to work on their own ideas.”

Freshman podcasting student Danielle Frey appreciates the flexibility of choosing topics for her podcasts.

“Something that I like in the class is that we have free range to do whatever we would like when making a podcast. Like we can do many different topics and like, we have a lot of different opportunities to like, go out and like, create new stuff,” said Frey.

Frey co-hosts a podcast with another podcasting student named Victoria Kico.

“We have a podcast called ‘Reality Check,’ and we just do whatever the assignments are, so I always write the scripts. We make the video. We always do a face show podcast, so we can get physical movement and stuff and different photos and angles of everything, and she always edits the videos. So that’s, like, our podcast process of like taking one.”

However, when it comes to publishing the podcasts for public listeners, Quinn lets the students make that decision. 

“Well, that’s an interesting thing. We don’t, because this is an educational setting, and I don’t quite have the studio equipment set up, because I have about 100 students, and we have one studio. So the podcast that we record, if the kids want to put it out there themselves, they can do that. But most of them just play it for me, and they’re still in training. They’re still learning how to do it. Maybe someday we’ll have something where they put it out there. So at this point, the podcasts remain sort of private unless a child or a kid or a student decides to post it for the public.”