In the Pat Peterson Museum Education Room on the second floor of Russell Library sat a wall lined with podcasting equipment and posters from the Writing for Success grant. On Nov. 12, the grant decided to give away multiple sets of podcasting equipment.
These sets included four headsets, microphones, sound barriers, 10 SD cards, six months of Buzzsprout premium podcast hosting and one Zoom Podtrak P8 that contained over 36 sound effects. The Podtrak can be used to record podcasts and edit the podcasts without opening a piece of online software.
“The Writing for Success grant is a federally funded $385,000 project from the Department of Education’s Community Projects Grant Program, and it was established in order to improve literacy, confidence, and skills in Baldwin County students,” said Jessica McQuain, programming coordinator for the Flannery O’Connor Institute of Humanities.
The grant wanted to give the equipment to Baldwin’s teachers and educators to help them out in their classrooms. The teachers signed up through a QR code before the giveaway and were chosen before the giveaway. Then, there were two more sets left that would be randomly raffled at a later date.
The first set went to Mary Vinson Memorial Library, and Kara Nitschke, the reference manager at Mary Vinson Memorial Library, picked it up on the library’s behalf.
“We’re going to make it available to our patrons to use, which is really exciting,” Nitschke said. “I’m not sure if we’re going to make it like check out able, or if we’re going to be able to set it up at the library for them to use, but either way, we will make it available to patrons to use, so anybody who has a library card can come and use the equipment or check it out, which is really awesome because library cards are free here as part of the pine system.”
The second set went to Baldwin High School teacher Steve Rudd, an audio, video, technology and film teacher. The school originally partnered with GCSU to start a podcast club, but due to a lack of participation, GCSU pulled out.
“I’m going to incorporate it into the classroom and start a weekly podcast for now,” Rudd said. “Dr. Price will be here tomorrow to interview and we will air it Friday. It will be our first, called Baldwin Beats. And then we’re planning on doing community leaders and school leaders that necessary people don’t know about. And that’s what we’re going to be striving for. Changing the whole face of Baldwin High School.”
The equipment given was valued at over $1700, and six sets of equipment were given out. One of those sets went to GCSU’s library, and another to Lakeview Academy.
“Well, the way they did it when they came and did the grant with us at school was to they talked about stories from their childhood,” said Erin Smith, a fifth-grade teacher at Lakeview Academy. “So I want to be able to use it in that same kind of capacity because I think podcasts are what they listen to more than they listen to the news or anything else, and media is where their attention is, so I think with fifth graders, that’ll just be very inspiring for them and good for them.”
Writing for Success also worked with the Lakeview Academy and Midway Hills Academy curriculum teams to develop a fifth-grade unit of study and to provide supplementary resources like field trips, podcasting and literacy mentors to come work in the schools.
“I think it’ll be easier access to tools for folks to do podcasting and digital storytelling,” McQuain said. “We hope that by making it available both in the public schools and with partners like the Mary Vincent Memorial Library, Create Inc. and Allied Arts, that storytelling will really be a family affair for folks of all ages, all backgrounds, all levels to come together and tell stories and share those stories.”
