kidsQs (teacher guidelines)

Your class has been selected to be a part of kidsQs!

We have developed the following guidelines for teachers.

• kidsQs – info for schools
• kidsQs – sample q’s
• Media artwork permission 2018

STAGE 1: TOPIC IDEAS (open submission)

• If you’re reading this, then you’ve already jumped this hurdle! Congratulations!

STAGE 2: QUESTIONS (chosen schools only)

• Use an inquiry-based approach to have students come up with questions on your topic for an expert to answer.
• We’re looking for a mixture of questions that:
  • the students genuinely don’t know the answers to, and want to find out;
  • other students may not know the answers to;
  • we can use to create a ‘story’ within the podcast, eg.
    • to set the scene: “what is climate change, and why does it matter to us?”
    • to close the podcast: “so, what can us kids do about climate change that will make a difference?”
  • are pitched at the level of a ‘tween’ audience.
• Don’t overthink it – we’re looking for questions that would genuinely come from students – not ones that are overly crafted.
• Send your questions to info@mediaeducation.com.au and we’ll review them and get back to you with the list of the ones we’d like to record for the kidsQs podcast.

STAGE 3: RECORDING (chosen students only)

• Review the questions – have students do a final tweak of grammar and language if needed.
• Record kids one at a time in a small-ish room, with no background noise.
• Recording on IPhone or similar is fine, you don’t need high-tech equipment.
• Create separate sound file for each student
• It would be best if it didn’t sound like the student was ‘reading’ the question, but rather being part of a conversation.
• Have each kid introduce themselves, but mix up some of them so they don’t all sound exactly the same, eg.
  • “My name is XX and I’m in year XXXX and my question is [PAUSE] XXXXX”
  • “I’m XX from year XX and I want to know [PAUSE] XXXX”
    • the pause is because we may just use the question and have the host introduce them.
    • if they are all same year level, leave that out and it will be introduced at start.
• Have each student that does a recording return a media permission form signed by their parent/guardian (or if you already have signed media permissions held by your school, please confirm by email).
• Email the following to info@mediaeducation.com.au
  • sound files
  • a list of student names and year levels
  • media permission forms (or confirmation in writing that you have this at school level)
• The kids’ questions will be provided to an ‘expert’ on your students’ topic. Please bear in mind that we may not be able to use all questions that are supplied.