Unveiling the Magic of Educational Podcasts with Ben Strouse of Gen-Z Media

leading to another world. GZM shows focuses exclusively on producing smart and purposeful digital programming created specifically to impact engage and educate tweens, teens and family audiences. Ben Strouse Welcome to Edtech Insiders.

minutes in the classroom? And how do you ensure that your podcasts are both educational but also obviously really engaging and entertaining?

When people think of podcasts, of course, they think of what 99% Of podcasts are, which are some version of talk and in the education space, depending on whether you're talking about high school or middle school or, or elementary or whatever they are talk or, or teaching to a curricula or some kind of participation that is targeted to usually a stem subject of

some kind. That's not what our shows are at our shows are essentially their stories that are brought to life but their their stories like epic movies are stories, and six minutes is a good example of that. And for people who aren't familiar with it, would you mind I'll play the first episode of six minutes so people can get it off the top and then it'll everything that we asked and everything that you asked me and all the all the answers like give you a little make a lot more sense.

It's why she became a doctor. I don't want to learn about whale brains. I want to see a whale. I'm sure we'll see one soon birdie. Maybe that helicopter scared them all away. I read online that the scientists at Whittier are actually using whale salts to experiment with human evolution. Don't believe everything you read. But wouldn't it be epic? Well, that thought so. Daddy, you said you were going to turn off your phone on the boat. Sorry, sweetheart. I have to take this.

Hello. Yes, Admiral grayling. What kind of activity? Doesn't the government ever take a day off? Yes. Monica, Honey, can you come into the cabin for a second? Sure. Be right back guys. See how many whales your spot before we get back and Does that seem weird to you? Like, I gotta work call. He's always getting work calls. Especially since we moved then why did he ask mom to come with him? Who cares? I can't see anything from down here. Already What are you

doing? Looking for? Well, trust me if there's a whale you'll see it you're not supposed to climb the railing and you're gonna get nice and close. With a retina blowhole and Bert birdie stop the boat. Hang on birdie. I'm throwing the life preserver. Grab onto it and don't let go swim to it. Good bird. Good. Hang on. Cyrus what's going on? She's in the water. She fell in the rock. Pool. Keep pulling. Hang on girl there's a girl flying in the water. She's right. There's a girl out there

look. Cyrus What are you doing? Cyrus you go in and Cyrus come back. Cyrus Cyrus went back to the boat but she's breathing. My name is Dr. Andrew. Can you hear me? How'd she get out there are an older folks around where she comes from she doesn't have any Hello. What's your name? Can you hear me? Holiday meeting Dr. Strauss, Dr. Strauss and ER. Check her vitals again and let me know if anything has changed. Yes, Dr. Anders? Is holiday going to be alright. Holiday. That's what she said on the

boat. It must be your name right? You too. Must be freezing. You're still wet. We're fine. Where she She's resting in that exam room. Has she said anything else? She hasn't woken up since you put her in the ambulance. Cyrus Bertie. You guys wait out here. Why can't we go in and see her? She's not ready for visitors. But you're going in? Please stay with your sister. Mom. What is it Cyrus? What's not marking on her left hand? I didn't notice

any marking will be out soon. I can cover up the marking with a bandage good. I called around. There's nothing out there about a missing girl she looks so peaceful lying there. The miracles she survived. James says when do you believe in miracles? Sooner or later? Someone's going to come looking for her. You know that? She's in distress. I can give her something to cover down.Wait. I think she's waking up. Can you hear me? Do you know where you are? Holiday? What happened?

You're in the hospital. Hospital. Do you know how you got here? Know what's going on? Why can I remember anything? It's okay honey, you're safe now. You are in an accident. Are you? Are you my parents? Are we Yes. Yes. We are your mom and dad. That's the

typically together. And when people talk about our shows, we've got about 20 of them. 60 minutes is one, they typically talk about watching them because the experience of listening to a show like this is very different from an audio book, or course listening to a typical podcasts.

So it's, it's a watch experience in your mind, it's more immersive, typically, because your imagination begins to exercise itself in ways that are different than when you're watching even a fully immersive epic movie, where you're just sort of following along to

different experience. So about two and a half, three years ago, we discovered that, that six minutes and a couple of our other shows like the unexplainable disappearance of Maurice Patel, and becoming Mother Nature, a couple others to the big fib that they were being played in classrooms, middle grade classrooms, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth grades two, and that it was happening all over the United States and Canada, in every state, in wealthy school districts and poor school

districts and in school districts that were relatively homogenous, that were incredibly diverse. And so we obviously got really interested in this, because our website would have an enormous amount of traffic 100,000 visitors sometimes from Google Chromebooks, where they were listening, people listen,

as well. You can listen to all of our shows anywhere that you listen to podcasts, naturally, Spotify, Amazon music wherever you listen, but as well as YouTube, but for some reason, we make it easier on our website.

And one of the things that's a challenge sometimes when you find the shows, and I'm digressing a little bit I know is that these are many of them are audio shows, which means of course, that you start with the first episode, and not all podcast players necessarily display them correctly, or have the right numbering. So that's why we can make it a little bit

easier on the website. But what we found out when we started talking to teachers was that, in one sense, all teachers were using it for a similar reason. But they were all using it for a different variation of that and what the reason, the basic reason they were all using it. And this again, is is typically fifth through eighth grade, although like I said, there are absolutely third and fourth grade listeners and ninth and 10th grade listeners as well.

They use our shows to to teach more effectively, and to teach fundamental different kinds of fundamentals more effectively. For example, and this is true, whether they're whether teachers are teaching a pull up group, for instance of gifted and talented kids, or whether they're teaching a very large classroom, learners who learn at

different levels. They're using the shows to like six minutes to engage their students, all in an equal way, all in a very sophisticated way around issues of communication, critical thinking skills, collaboration, creativity, the you know, the four C's, some teachers use it for classroom engagement. And then we have a website, which we created. Our main website is GCM shows.com. And you can find most of our shows there. In fact, you can find all of our shows there.

But we also have a website, which is exclusively for teachers, which we created about a year ago, called GCM classroom.com, where we take these shows like six minutes, and there are three teaching materials that support the shows, and also tie the show's back to curriculum. So the story of six minutes is obviously as I think you can tell, it's a thriller. It's an adventure story. It has sci fi elements, and it's very appropriate for

all grade levels. And depending on the grade level, it's used for teaching, the kinds of things that literature is typically taught for us to teach. And, again, I can't speak to it in more detail. Other than the fact that it because people use it for such different things. But that's that's the short answer. And that's wild.

amazing. And I would imagine that the length of the podcast also probably have something to do with it. Because it's one thing to, to have students listen to a 40 minute podcast that takes a whole class period to another to do that kind of really accelerated serial six minute podcast keeps people really excited. And you have tons of class time left and two

things. Have you heard that sort of as one of the really interesting ways, aspects of the podcast that allows teachers to use it organically in the classroom?

30 hours of content. Over bite sized episodes like this, we have another show which is similar in in length, in terms of the number of episodes, it's called tomorrow, which is, which is a sort of a reimagining of the anti story. And it has the same kind of, of immersive story. And you can follow along through the whole year. But most of our shows are more typical audio drama formats, which is to say they're 10 or 12 episodes.

And the episodes tend to be 15 to 20 minutes, maybe a little more, sometimes as much as 30, we have a show, which is again, a reimagining. Most of our shows are wholly original, like six minutes and Mars Patel. But we have another show called Treasure Island, which Treasure Island 2020, which is a complete reimagining of that story. And some of those episodes are 30 minutes. And that show is also

very popular. So the shorter episodes are easier to I think they have a I think they can be used in many, many different ways. And many times teachers will play two or three in a classroom. So it has that flexibility, because you want to end the pay a lot of attention in our writing to the shape of an episode. And you can hear cliffhangers, of course, which

is engaged. But it's more difficult to make shows like six minutes than it is in terms of allocation of resources that it is and storytelling than it is to make a show for instance, like Treasure Island 2020, or becoming Mother Nature, which is another big show that's also very popular in classrooms. One of the things that we started doing about 18 months ago, I guess, by now is also visiting classrooms around the country and around the world. Yeah, what do you see when you visit, and

it's crazy. It's so crazy, we're like, we're like rockstars, it's so much fun. The kids are just so excited about the shows they've been listening to that when we visit and oftentimes there's two, three, sometimes even four classrooms that are combined. And the principal will be there. Sometimes there'll be a district superintendent as well, what we see is we see a lot of enthusiasm. And the teachers tell us how the kids have been waiting for the visit,

and so forth. And it's usually just me or one of our other creators. And they ask fun questions. The questions are very different depending on the ages of the kids, but they tend to be how do you make the shows? Is it going to be made into a movie? Can you tell us about your favorite scenes and things like that. But also, we talk a lot about the writing process, which is ultimately what teachers are talking about. And I started to answer you before about what teachers use it for.

And I said there was sort of one fundamental thing and I kind of

kind of got off track. The fundamental thing is that it creates a using podcasts like this fully immersive, fully realized Audio Stories, audio dramas, mysteries, adventures, creates an opportunity for a relationship between student and teacher, which is really, I think, more intense, more more powerful than it might be if there's a different kind of teaching tool that's perhaps not connecting them to the student the same way, but it's being

shared. And one of the things that struck me because in visiting all the different classrooms and until you're talking to hundreds of teachers, is that using our shows, puts the teacher student relationship really at the center of learning, which is a very different I think that's a different trend that goes against the trend of very effective I guess, tools like gamification, and entertainment in video and audio form and mostly video I guess, which allows teachers I suppose To

teach different students, fewer resources and things like that they're absolutely responding to the incredible strain, which is put on teachers, our show has come to the process so differently, partly, I suppose, because we, we didn't design these shows to be used as education tools. It's the quilters who found them and started using them.

installment. And now we teach them in the classroom as if they're these classic, you know, works of literature, which which they are, but they were not written that way. And it reminds me a lot of what you're doing with your cliffhangers and your episodes, it also makes me think a little bit about radio dramas about you know, the 1930s when before television, people did these incredibly immersive many voices, many sound effects, lots of music really, really fully

realized audio pieces. But that, you know, as you mentioned at the beginning of the of the interview, they don't do that much anymore. Mostly when we sit down to listen to a podcast or an audio book, we're not expecting a lot of music, we're not expecting a lot of sound effects we're expecting relatively straightforward. Somebody's talking maybe to people, what you just showed us, it does seem a lot more like dramatic television if it feels more like Netflix than like a

podcast. And I'm sure that's by design. Thank

a thriller or a mystery. You know, in writing these creating them, we've, we've discovered, of course, that certain genres or types of stories, you can do anything in this format, you can have car chases, which are wonderful, you can have gunfights, but when you set up a scene that pays off with an action element, you have to think about it in a different

way. And if the payoff needs something visual, then it has to be set up differently, so that people understand everything that's going on in the environment, and all the characters and so forth. And you don't want to do that in a very subtle way. Because you're building story you don't ever want to bore or confused kids in particular, but anyone, you can do that. But I was starting to say that mystery works extremely well, everything that's relationship based, works

extremely well. And you're right to mention audio dramas, you know, the golden age of radio was what I think our great grandparents lived in when they thought about entertainment, or maybe our great great grandparents at this point as kids. But the stories back then were different. They were very Narrator driven. Of course, sound effects were often made and are made in the studio with fully stories in general have changed a lot. And people's tastes and stories have also

changed a lot. Anyone can read Dickens and really love it and you become pulled into that style. So you get used to it. Just like if you read Willa katha, or whatever it is, any classical Melville, every classic writer has a style of their time and their own voice, of course, and so great writers

pull you into that. But when you're stepping into a story, and you're not stepping into a piece of literature that's been assigned to you, people are used to Marvel they're used to Star Wars are used to, as well as the classic family movies that inspire what we do, like Iron Giant and stand by me, a lot of the Amblin movies. Those are the kinds of shows that we like to make. And you'll notice, I mean, those are all examples of shows.

And there are others in the back of the Future series and so forth, which their family shows, yes, kids especially and by kids, you have to be careful, because in the podcast space, when you talk about kids, most of the time, people are talking

about kids, eight and under. And I'd say in the kids and family category in podcasts 95% of the shows or more are specifically targeting or have found an audience of kids who are five to eight, or four to six, sometimes three to five, that age range, you know, I mean, because kids who are 567 could not be more different from kids who are 1011 12, but they tend to be grouped together when people talk about them, depending on

the industry. Because in podcasts, which is part of a larger digital industry, everyone under 13 is swept into a big pile. But of course that's not true. When you're talking about education. You don't teach tip Luckily, for 100 years, we haven't taught 12 year olds in the same classroom as six year olds, customarily, because people learn at different levels and they mature at different

levels. And the kids who we speak to who our stories speak to who we create these stories for these shows for are in what's called tween years or the teen years, our audience of kids, it's about two thirds to three quarters of our overall audience, maybe two thirds, I guess, there's a lot of CO listening with parents. And a sizable portion of our audience are adults who listen on their

own. But when we think about the kid portion of our audience who we hold in mind, when we create these shows, were thinking about kids who are looking at becoming young adults, they aren't yet there. But they are realize they're still kids, for the most part, young teens. And they're going to be inhabiting a world that's run by adults just like their family is. So they're in a place where the world looks very different. All kinds of possibilities, as well as it's

scary. You know, there's sorts, there's certain themes and character archetypes that you'll find in our shows, even though we don't write that way, when you think about these audiences, these are the people who you're thinking about. And those, those kids are extremely different from little kids who enjoy different kinds of content. Like I said, the number of podcasts in the world of education, favors Elementary and preschool aged kids. And there are some great shows. For those kids.

They tend to be STEM based. And they're learning based it'll here's a fun way to talk about a piece of science or a piece of nature. And there's some great shows like but why as a podcast around the world is a very popular podcast, when you're looking for shows for author and all ages audience. Or if you're a an educator of four through high school, and you're looking for a teaching tool that's audio based, there are fewer options

for sure. There are some shows which are made, which are not scripted fiction, like our shows, which are made for all ages, audience radio lab, and there's the American life and those can be brought into the classroom for different purposes. But as you can tell from listening to six minutes, as you'd be able to tell for listening any of our shows, our shows are used very differently. Yeah.

shows for very young kids. And not very many shows for tweens and teens, even though they're really really hungry for entertaining, and especially content that's both entertaining and educational. So I'm I'm hearing that from you very much. I wanted to double click on what you mentioned about the student teacher relationship and the CO listening that you just mentioned, between students and parents, you're making podcasts that are very modern in their style. They're modern in their

themes. As you say, this is Marvel, there's, you know, Netflix, Star Wars, also Steve Spielberg all sorts of stuff influencing them. And you mentioned have this really helps build the teacher student relationship. That's a really interesting comment. I believe it it makes sense. But I'd love to hear you unpack sort of what

you mean by that. How do you think that playing podcasts like six minutes in the classroom really helped build relationships between students and the teachers as well as students and each other?

participate in. Whether you're I didn't mention before, that so many of our shows are used for reluctant readers as well, when they're talking about the younger part of our audience, or for people who are struggling with literacy, whether it's, for one reason or another, maybe it's a second language, the idea of using a story, an immersive story like this, that brings a world to life, that people can inhabit together means that people are listening together. And they're talking together.

And there's nothing between them. They're not interfacing with a game, or taking a test, which will let them know where they need to improve for you're not dealing with a tool, you're dealing with another human being and you're talking about a teacher, it's all in the teacher. Of course, this is not, I wouldn't say it's not for the

faint of heart. In fact, I think it is for the faint of heart because what it does, and I'm speaking from all the things that I've heard over and over and over again, is it makes teaching not just a joyous thing in which it may be a lot of the time but there's so much work involved every day and throughout the year that teachers have to perform. That doesn't just make it makes it easier and it makes it more

effective. You can really reach class room's in, again, around certain subjects and topics and curriculum. And again, if you have to conform to a certain curriculum, and we have tried to, we have shown where our podcasts, all of the different podcasts align with state curriculums. And you can find that at GCM classroom.com. But the teacher is now a part of a group leading a discussion where everyone has something to say.

And they all whatever they have to say is just as valid, it brings a higher level of thinking, and an analysis and discussion equally around regardless of, of learning levels. And I think that's the essence of a relationship, when you are talking and relating to someone arguing, having fun jumping around, and ultimately driving towards a learning objective, where the teacher is

front and center. And I'm very proud of the fact that many of the teachers who have been the most vocal about using our shows have been recognized by the Teacher of the Year program, by their states and nationally. So we count many teachers of the years, Teachers of the Year, among our our most passionate supporters, which is, which is a nice thing to be able to say, I don't think that's

day after day. And at all like this really exciting, immersive audio experience, where as you say, it's students can actually listen together and then discuss together, it's a fantastic way to sort of bring class cohesion, and then teach whatever you want

to associate with it. Whether it's exactly a curriculum tie in or, or storytelling or critical thinking, it makes a lot of sense of speaking of recognition of your teachers, your shows your Gen Z media's podcast have also received a lot of recognition, several prestigious awards, including the only Peabody award ever awarded to an audio drama and another nomination for the Peabody

awards. That's really exciting. And I'd love to hear the recognition that you've gotten, how has that influenced your team's approach to what you're going to do next to how to move forward with more and more different shows? And what does it mean to you as a team, when you get that kind of recognition?

you know, that's the idea. And rewards, make it easier to, I think, introduce a concept which may feel strange and new until you have actually sampled it to teachers, and parents, among people who know podcasts, I think our shows are very trusted and respected. And I think, having awards simply as a shorthand for us anyway, the value of it as a shorthand for that. So you don't have to take extra time to say, no, no, this is good stuff. We don't have to

convince anybody. And frankly, most of the success we've had has been organic. We're only now just sort of stepping out and beginning to raise our hand and say, Look what we're doing. So that's a testament.

races, different genders. I'm curious how you think about that, especially given that, you know, your podcasts are being listened to in so many different types of classrooms? How do you sort of enter the world of diverse representation? Well,

diversity of thinking. And so I'll say that as a media and entertainment company are we simply make a choice when we cast a character, were there something about their background is important, certainly a racial element or whatever, then they were casting actors as well who have that background to share. But by and large Are students don't know what the actor's look like? They are one of the questions we get a lot, of course is what do they look

like? Anyone can search them, it's easy to search them and see what they look like. But it's funny most, most most people don't. And so when we come to the classroom, they'll say, you know, what are they? What do they look alike or you know, that want to know about how they, their relationships were with each other, and whether they were friends and things like that. But frequently, kids are surprised to find that a character who they pictured one

way, looks very different. And I think it's a very funny surprise as well. But to answer your question, it's the diversity of voices that we really focus on. Yeah, and

have any plans to do that? Or do you feel like this would actually draw away from the human element and the relationship based material that you're really trying to build?

things like that. And that can be teaching methodologies as well. Again, not everything is perfect, and, and not everything can be understood. So we're skipping past the question of whether AI can be human enough to really measure and account for the kinds of things that teachers bring to the classroom to make a student's learning experience special and memorable. Because the ways that that's measured, may not conform with the actual impact that you're having on a student's

life. So as long as we're not cyborgs ourselves, I think that you have to measure education, and the critical importance of what teachers bring to our lives when we're still in school, in terms of the kinds of people we grew up to be, and learning standards, learning subjects, learning academic things that are measured in tests is important. But equally important

is socialization. Equally important is social and emotional learning and modeling, learning, exercising your ability to make choices in different situations, all of those things are part of learning and they're not measured the same way in the classroom as STEM subjects are measured or even tested in literature in the arts. So So yes, AI will have an impact on

measurement. Then there's the you know, AI in terms of teaching, and you have to kind of immediately go to the biggest successes in gamification and edutainment mobile learning, even hybrid learning, how can AI help? Well, AI, presumably, will, will make those things more effective. For us. What's called AI is a much smaller

thing. It's a much smaller piece of it, which is that, first of all, we make the shows the same way we do now, as we did when we started, we use Pro Tools, we record actors, preferably in studios. Now increasingly, because of the pandemic, we we've shifted to a larger portion of remote recordings, which have their own challenges that are less fun. But yes, I think that in a couple of years, I the recording process may be

smoother because of AI. Right now there are hints that we'll be able to shorten the pickup process with using sound like voices for a word here or there, rather than having to have a have an entirely separate session. That's a possibility that we do use. We do use fun, fake voices. Sometimes when we're using a Siri like

character. In a show, we have a show called The Hollow, which is a reimagining of the Sleepy Hollow, where the horseman speaks through a voice to a text, a Voice app on a phone, so that we can hear them and we didn't get the character for that. But I don't have much more to say about it. I'm not a programmer. I am fascinated by it. I am not scared yet. But I mean, it certainly intimidate.

We'll see, I think the same questions and debates that people have about how you teach education going forward, and whether efficiency is a touchstone. And the way there is through things like gamification and such. Those questions are the same questions people are going to be asking my opinion about AI. Yeah, it's

some ways. And, but but obviously keeping the core of the human relationship and the humans in the process, the whole entertainment industry is is wrestling with this right now, obviously, we see strikes across the country, or for writers and actors worried about this. But it sounds like you're thinking about it in a in a really

thoughtful way. I wonder, you know, just from my own perspective, whether the creation of some of the teaching materials might be enhanced through AI, because there are a lot of tools right now for creating lesson plans for creating flashcards for creating all sorts of educational materials with automation. And I wonder, given that you have this giant library of of great shows, but not necessarily an equivalent number of teaching tools. That could be an

interesting use case. So I have a last question for you, our audience, we have both educators, but mostly educational technology professionals of various kinds. We have investors, we have founders, event tech companies, we have operators in bigger tech companies, as podcasts become even more widespread. And as audio materials become widespread in education, what advice would you give to educators who are interested in either using podcasts or

creating their own? And what advice would you give ed tech industry about how to think about this podcast world? Because it's not one that I think we think about as much as we probably should?

teaching experience. And I think it makes teaching I've seen it seems to make teaching, more fun, more effective, just all around. It's great. So one of the I'll answer your question by talking a little, we get the same question in a different way when we visit classrooms. And I'll go back to what I said

before about podcasts. So when you think about what a podcast is, and what it could be, of course, you're thinking about, most of the time, you're thinking about talk podcast, you're not thinking about long form talk podcasts, you're not thinking about shows like ours, typically, I think that the value of of shows like ours is, is perhaps more impactful in some ways, because it, like I said, puts the relationship that a teacher has at the center of

whatever they're doing. And it gives them a way to amplify students attention and focus to anything, it leads into a discussion or a learning experience that's deeper and more connected. And usually from what we've been told, and what we've seen, more lasting and more durable. And that comes out of story it comes out of. And there's something that sort of, I guess I'd say it's it's inherently nutritious. One of my partners likes to say about the

mouth of medium. When you listen to a story like this, it's more than a story. When you inhabit a world that's fully realized, through audio, the experience takes on a different, it has a different impact than having that experience through a different medium. So if you're talking about podcasts like ours, there, I think it's a it's a high touch experience, which teachers and you and I at the beginning, before we started, we're talking about how it's so intimidating sometimes to learn

something new. Even if it's so easy. We were talking about editing, Straight Talk podcasts. And if you haven't edited before, work with the simple editor, like, I'm doing so many things I don't want to learn. I know it's gonna take me five minutes, but I just don't want to because it's something new. I think there are teachers who look at podcasts and they're

like, Well, where do I start? So when you're talking about podcasts like ours, you can certainly start by listening to yourself, bringing them into the classroom, you can go to GCM classroom.com and see how other teachers are using them. You can you can search the web if you want. We are teachers.com has some nice lists of podcasts to use. But then there are the other group of class, there are podcasts and get mostly for teachers of elementary aged

kids. And then you're talking about, I think, a tool, which is a little bit like any other tool, but maybe it's a little more powerful or a little more effective for certain kinds of learners because it's being delivered through audio. Here's how you we're going to now talk with you about this subject. We're going to produce a spot and talk to people and make it

fun about the subject. So you'll learn it better, very PBS Kids, you have learning it's front and center, but it's also presented in a way which feels very connected. And the teacher sits there I think and listens and learns and talks and discusses but it's not quite the same. The other part of podcasts in the classroom, however, and this is what I like to talk about when we visit. What I like to talk about is is the writing portion of it, you know creative writing in general, but then using

podcasts as a tool. So some tea years have brought podcasts into the classroom as a tool as something that kids can do on their own, which is to use audio to tell the story. It doesn't have to be a fiction story at all, it can be a story about an experience they've had. But the process of telling the story and audio, first of all, it levels the playing field for learners who learn differently for sure, because we all have a certain innate ability to tell stories

that we take for granted. And when you are forced to organize your thoughts, in order to convey something in a story form, this becomes the conversation when we visit a lot

of the time. And it's certainly what teachers who are using podcasts in the classroom I think can think about, and when you encourage a student to organize their thoughts in order to communicate a piece of information or, or something else, in order to reach a specific audience, and encourage them to have that audience in mind, they're going through a process, which is so incredibly sophisticated, and would be so difficult to teach if you were sitting them down and doing it

in an old fashioned way. But it's still so, so well taught that they have the guidance to do it in audio, it doesn't require any fancy tools, either. They're super simple podcast editors available in the cloud for free. I know, a couple of companies, I think I don't we don't use them. But you know, Adobe has one. And I think Microsoft has made a lot all the big tech companies have a version, or most of them do anyway. So that's the way that Podcasts can be used very

effectively, for sure. And if a teacher has the latitude to do that, to allow their students encourage them to make podcasts, I think that's a wonderful thing. If they ever wish to make shows like ours, what I always say is, remember all the work that goes into it, you have to have you have to write it, you have to rewrite it, you have to rewrite it five more times, you have to find an actor or actors, if it's not going to just be

you. And it shouldn't just be you, you have to edit it, you have to add music, because music is like a different character, it's so important in creating the story will, then their sound effects. And all of that requires a different kind of editing. So if you're going to make a show like that, and it's very possible to do the first time you do it, keep it so short, that you're gonna finish

and succeed and finishing. And then you can look at it and you see the thing you've done and and you can say whether you like it, whether it's successful, 30 seconds a minute, it takes 100 hours or more to make. You don't make our shows episode by episode. But if you were to break it down that way, hundreds of hours per episode with all the people and everything they have to do. So it's a wonderful thing if a teacher can support

students doing that as well. But the answer your question, podcasts have all kinds of utility. It depends on how they're brought in. Yeah,

a printer and so forth. And we put it in an imaginary story, where he kind of, in the first season process swords with the cruel British governor of Boston, who's after a treasure and, and he hasn't, he runs a little gang of wharf rats and gets there first, and there's a showdown. And in season two, he goes to New York City, colonial New York, and we try and keep it very accurate and sensitive to

all of the issues. And then we also had some shorts with a Ben Franklin expert talking about the show and about what we know about Ben Franklin. But that's a more grounded show, for sure. Then in six minutes. It's taught, you know, American history when people are

whatever it is. But if it was insects, for instance, one guest would be the chief of entomology at the Natural History Museum, and another one would own their run their own extermination firm. And they're both real experts, except ones of course, not real. And the good So listen, and that's a huge co listening favorite because adults will But as much as anybody, and you try and figure out everyone thinks they are great at telling who the liar

is, so it's easy and fun. It's a real snappy show, Disney made it into a television show as well, which was nice, wasn't the same as the podcast. But it was a nice honor to to know that it was made the show,

How about teachers passing notes, that's a show which was created by one of our our teacher friends, Donnie Piercey, who is Kentucky Teacher of the Year, and he interviews teachers each week, I think that should only be on on our GCM classroom site. And it's really a way for him to interview teachers who have had some success in what they do, to hear their stories, what some of their favorite hacks are for their classrooms, in short, short episodes. So that's,

things about each other? So that's what that show is? Dive in anywhere. Yep. How about the big melt that you think you've exhausted the shows that are not our scripted adventures and mysteries and fiction. But the big melt is a full episode show created by Earth Rangers, which is a Canadian charity, which educates kids about the environment and animals. And big melt is a show for teens about how they can be helped, how they can be effective and impactful in in wrestling with climate crisis.

classrooms. This feels like one of the most thorough versions of a sort of educational version of a podcast that you've approached it tell us about that podcast and why you chose to do it that way.

And the choice boards are continued that experience to after they listen so that the so that the teachers, if they want to organize the classroom experience in a particular way, have some framework for doing it. Again, they're completely customizable. But they do offer some structure if teachers want that and, and like you said it, they all point out ways in which the show that they're listening to aligns with a particular curriculum with Iowa Chapman in the last dog, this was a real

labor of love. It was a an idea for a story world that I'd had for a very long time. I it was the idea of what a world would be like if if there were no more animals. And it turned into a story. It turned into a world building show about a world that sort of a post apocalyptic world. But in your 800 years in the future or so is what I have always imagined. And climate change is such that it's a very different place as our world has

been in the past. And for the people who live in that time seems to be a world where animals don't exist. And for the people living in the far future. Stories of eagles whales are like stories of griffins and dragons. They all seem incredible. And so many

generations have passed. And there's been so much change that animals are just sort of thing of tales, and a girl Iowa Chapman who's 14 and lives in a village which feels very medieval, I suppose in some ways is there's no technology to speak up except simple

technology. She discovered what might in fact be the last dog and this this area of the world, the area that we know is kept in line by a group of regulators who control what people eat and so forth and have a very strong, what they grow, and they have strong ideas that aren't completely We are about, about animals. And when she discovers this dog, she has to, she flees across a very strange land. It has a little bit of a, if you ever saw read the book the road or saw the movie the road,

that's a very adult book. This is obviously for, for an all ages audience, but it's a crazy land that she flees across with doggo. And she's searching for a legendary place called Haven, where it said that animals still exist. And she discovered in the process that her parents who had been taken when she was very little, had been part of a underground network anyway, it's a wonderful story, it's a lot of fun. I think just if you listen to the first 20 minutes, you're

gonna be so lucky. 10 minutes, you're gonna be really hooked. It's just really one of our best. And we created it as a three hour movie. Basically, it was a single episode. That was we wanted to see how that performed and how people interacted with it. And after it had been out for a little while. And when we discovered what we discovered about classroom uptake of our shows, we realize playing three hours in a classroom doesn't make a lot of

sense for a lot of people. When our I mean, I don't want to say too much. But when our shows are, when we have episodes, when we have serialized shows that are divided into episodes, those aren't random cuts, where you take a three hour show and you slice it into 12 equal episodes, we every episode is written and put together like its own story, the beginning, a middle and an end, cliffhanger, or whatever, depending on what we're going

for. So there was a real challenge in in dividing up Iowa Chapman, but we did very successfully, I think, into 14 episodes. And because it's such a different world, and there's so many things going on that impact us today. We created wraparound so that there's an introduction from a host telling us what we're going to hear that has substance in that that has some takeaway learning substance in that episode, which is a pure

story. And then we'll hear from some experts who are interviewed at the very end, it's only a little bit of wrap around. But what it does is it allows it gives teachers a way of playing through that show and teaching to various nature and nature related curriculum as they make their way through the particular podcast. So that's why we help how they can be effective and impactful in in wrestling with the climate crisis.

be as authentic as we can. One of the reasons I'm so proud of this show, besides the reception, it's gotten overall, is that people who have struggled through cancer and who are struggling with cancer, tell us that it is then made a real difference with them. And that's you can't have higher praise than that. Absolutely.

flavors of it. I'd like to think that another trend might be what it is that teachers have been doing with our shows, which is to say, finding pieces of our world that they can bring into the classroom to teach in ways that aren't so easily, that aren't all about measurement, or practicality or efficiency, which is not to say those things aren't extraordinarily important, again, with everything teachers have to do.

But and this doesn't require a heavier lift, but it does require I think, a different just a different way of thinking. And the idea that you think first about relationships and the value of of relationships and education. I'd like to think that there's a trend in that direction, too. Which is not to say that it cuts against AI ultimately, but that is its own thing. So that'll be my answer. Oh, absolutely.

podcasts. But the caveat is that, again, if you're new to podcasts in the classroom, you just have to ask yourself, what the grade level is, is very important. If you have any ideas about how you want to use the shows, for instance, do you want to bring podcasting into the classroom as a, as an exercise for students? And if that's the case, then you're not looking for a podcast recommendation list, like what I just mentioned, but you're looking

instead for simple tools. So I mean, you can find all of that pretty easily. I wouldn't feel right sending anyone to one spot over another. Gotcha.

fun way to listen to along. It's not a color by numbers thing. It's just sort of a fun way to kind of have have a friend in the process of making the podcast. We thought students would like that. Yeah, I'm