JenNifer Barmore dalton City SchoOlS

Jennifer Barmore is a fourth grade teacher at the Brookwood School, a STEM-certified school in the Dalton City School District. Last year, school leadership asked educators: “What are your students doing to be producers of technology and not just consumers of technology?”

Barmore took the question to heart. She wanted a way to integrate technology into the work her fourth grade students were already doing with the school’s nearby wetlands at Lakeshore Park, trapping and studying turtles and testing the water quality.

Starting in the 2021-22 school year, she created a class podcast with a small group of students.

“One podcast was about plastics and how disposability is disposing us. Another was about the AstroTurf that was getting into the water in the park,” said Barmore. “We have this whole world of things in our backyard. The kids are curious. They want to research and learn more about it – and they want to tell people about it.”

That first year, Barmore chose the podcast groups. This past school year, she made it optional. Ten of her 22 students accepted, each working on his or her own individual podcast. While some chose to focus on en- vironmental issues, others chose topics outside of the scientific field. One student chose to explore the salary differences between NBA and WNBA players.

“They feel like they have a voice relevant to what they are learning and living and they are developing 21st century skills by going out and interviewing people and collaborating with each other and people in the community,” said Barmore. “It’s a great thing for them to take a sense of ownership in what they are doing and to realize how powerful their voices are.”

At the beginning of the school year, Barmore had her students – many of whom had never heard a podcast before – listen to various podcasts and summarize what they learned. They listened to different formats, some with one speaker and others based on conversations between two people. They then began learning to record and edit by recording audiobooks for younger students.

From there, any time students wrote an essay or a piece of poetry in her class, Barmore had them record it and add sound effects to build their editing skills.