Maja Debska, Syeda Aroush Akit, Abigail Locke Brooks and Zoe Martin.
Coláiste Bríde pupils launch their first ‘official’ podcast
LOCAL Transition Year students in Clondalkin have successfully launched their first podcast with the help of a teacher.
Transition Year students from Coláiste Bríde worked to develop a podcast with the help of teacher John McDonnell. The podcast is titled ‘CBFM – The Official Podcast of Coláiste Bríde’ and is intended to have a regular schedule focused on news from the school.
McDonnell explained: “We have three groups of Transition Year students who will be participating in this over the year and basically their project is to research, produce, present, edit and then put out a podcast that will tell the story of the school over that particular period in time.”
Mr McDonnell has a background in radio and jumped at the chance to teach students about the media sphere.
The teacher joined Coláiste Bríde in September and felt that creating a podcast would be a strong module for teens to learn.
The students in each of the groups that are creating a podcast have two-and-a-half months to complete a 40-minute podcast.
In the first episode, students interviewed several teachers on initiatives around wellbeing, a behind-the-scenes look at the set design for the school musical and some musical interludes throughout.
McDonnell said that the first crop of students found the process of the new module to be rewarding.
“The feedback from the students was very positive . . . they had to work together to identify the different topics they wanted to cover.
“They had to go and find members of staff or students that they’d interview. They had to actually put together the questions and the scripts, actually go and record it.
“So, hopefully what they’ve learned are some good media skills that they could transfer.”
McDonnell stated that some of the students have taken an interest in continuing media work after the completion of the first podcast. A few of them have started podcasts of their own off the back of their work in the module.
One student is in the process of creating a podcast documenting the work being put into the school musical ‘Sister Act’ which is set to run in January.
“In the long-term, what I’m hoping for is that our transition year groups, each of them will have at least three kinds of podcast programmes each year that kind of explain about what’s going on in Coláiste Bríde.
“But also developing students who have a particular aptitude or interest in it, who can work and kind of develop their own skills.
“So that, I suppose, they have a greater sense of the media environment, but also develop the skills that may well see them working in the media in future.”
