Storycast // Overview
Listening to stories told by our elders is one of the most fundamental ways in which we learn values, morals, personal history, and a sense of connection to our community. Learning to listen, to ask questions, and to be genuinely curious about the stories of others are all important life skills. These are transferable skills that can be learned in any subject area.

What I would propose for a learning design project is an app that allows 6-12th-grade students to produce audio stories related to specific content areas, or around personal, cultural, or social themes outside of school. There is currently a podcast called, “StoryCast,” but there is not an application by the same name. There is also an app called “Anchor” (by Spotify) that allows users to produce their own podcasts, but it is not specifically geared towards education. The purpose of the Storycast app would be to engage students in telling their own stories, interviewing others (family members, professionals, peers, teachers), or creating fictional stories in audio form. Teachers could create prompts and assignments, organize groups, and the students could record, collaborate, edit, and add music and sound effects. The productions would include fictional and non-fiction narratives, or audio experiments, all of which could align with standards in ELA, Science, Math, History, and the Arts. The archive would be structured and visually engaging — Podcasting meets Instagram.

With this app, a History teacher could assign students “historical figures” to interview (e.g. Frederick Douglas, Rosa Parks, Albert Einstein), and in teams, they could create interviews based on biographical information, with other students “role-playing” the historical figure. Students could also interview their own family members about historical events, so that they can better understand ethnographic research and their own family history. If making connections between a historical event and something happening in our world today (inflation, political debates, imperialism, civil rights, etc.), students could produce audio documentaries with interviews from varying perspectives. In ELA, 6-8th-graders learning about narrative structure could use the hero’s journey to create a personal superhero story, told through their own podcast. They could create personal narratives that place themselves as the hero of their own story, facing challenges, developing superpowers, and overcoming obstacles. Students in STEM-related classes could create audio-based reflections on experiments and problem-solving strategies to build “studycasts” for their summative assessments. Students in media arts could create experimental (and non-linear) audio collages, using field recordings to explore themes relevant to their lives. In settings integrating ELA and media arts, students could develop audio poems or spoken word podcasts about themes in ELA, or in response to canonical works. The ideas are endless.

Learning Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.6-8.2
Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/ experiments, or technical processes.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.3
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.7
Compare and contrast the experience of reading a story, drama, or poem to listening to or viewing an audio, video, or live version of the text, including contrasting what they "see" and "hear" when reading the text to what they perceive when they listen or watch.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.9-10.5
Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.
MA:Cr3.1.7a
Coordinate production processes to integrate content and components for determined purpose and meaning in media arts productions, demonstrating understanding of associated principles, such as narrative structures and composition.