7 Creative Ways to Use Podcasts With Your Students

In today’s digital world, students are constantly bombarded with distractions: social media, online ads, short-form videos, and endless notifications. As digital media continues to shape the way students consume information, you’ve likely noticed how this shift is affecting their attention spans and ability to focus.

But what if you could harness one of today’s most popular content formats to actually capture students’ attention and support learning?

Imagine a tool that offers clear, in-depth explanations from real experts, available on any device, easy to implement in your lesson plans, and familiar to most students.

That tool already exists: it’s called a podcast.

Whether you're a long-time podcast listener or completely new to the format, integrating educational podcasts into your classroom can be a game-changer. Podcasts offer an accessible, mobile-friendly learning experience that allows students to engage with educational content in a modern, flexible format.

Podcast Activities and Ideas in This Post

This section gives you an overview of the podcast activities and teaching ideas you'll find in this post. Some are ready-to-use BookWidgets activities that you can copy to your account and use in your classroom, while others are ideas for using podcasts in your lessons, from listening and presenting to having students create their own podcasts.

Want to learn more about these podcast activities? Make sure to keep reading to discover more information about each one.

1. Use Podcasts for Listening Comprehension in Language Courses
2. Tickle the Imagination of Your Students With Storytelling Podcasts
3. Use Podcasts for Dictations
4. Interview a Character for a Podcast
5. Let Your Students Create Their Own Podcast
6. Use a Podcast to Explain a Lesson Topic
7. Let Your Students Choose a Podcast About a Certain Topic and Present It

Before we begin some of the activities in this post are created with BookWidgets. If you're new to BookWidgets, here's what you need to know:

1. BookWidgets is an all-in-one content creation tool for teachers that helps all teachers create interactive digital assignments and assessments (with a variety of 37 interactive question types).
2. Teachers can share BookWidgets evaluation through their connected learning management system, such as Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Canvas, Moodle, and many more, making digital activities easy to manage within their existing workflow.
3. Students answers are collected and organized in a reporting dashboard, where teachers can review work, give feedback, and evaluate performance efficiently.

What Are Podcasts?

A podcast is a portmanteau word formed from iPod and Broadcasting. What started in the early 2000s as a form of audio blogging has evolved into a popular digital media format with a huge audience. You could consider podcasts as radio on demand, but the content of most podcast episodes is not exactly what you would hear on the radio. For instance, there are podcasts with (very) long, in-depth interviews or podcasts about niche topics that you would never hear on traditional media.

Many podcast shows have developed a distinct style, ranging from very short to very long episodes, including monologues or interviews with guests, and podcasts in English or other languages. Without a doubt, there are some interesting educational podcasts for teachers and students, covering a wide range of topics and subjects.

8 Reasons Why You Should Use Podcasts in Your Lessons

Are you unsure why you should consider using podcasts in class? Here are 8 reasons why podcasts might bring extra value to your lessons:

1. Podcasts are popular! Podcasts have become a widely used form of digital media, with millions of episodes available on a huge variety of topics. And the good news is that many podcasts are available for free!
2. There are podcast episodes available about just about any topic. They can be a great addition to your lessons and classroom explanations, giving students another way to explore a topic.
3. In many episodes, experts in their field give clear and comprehensive information. Let the experts do the talking… while you take some rest 😉.
4. Podcasts are available in many different languages. In this blog post, we’ll present some interesting podcasts in English, but you’ll definitely find some good ones in your language or the language you’re teaching.
5. There are many different podcast formats and styles, e.g., very short shows (a couple of minutes per episode) vs. long, in-depth podcasts (one hour or longer per episode).
6. Your students can listen to podcasts anywhere, e.g., when they’re on the bus on their way to school. 🚌
7. Podcasts are audio content, so listening to podcasts can offer an alternative to screen-based learning and may help reduce the amount of time students spend looking at a screen. 📵
8. There are many different ways you can use podcasts in your lessons. I've listed a few podcast activities and ideas for the classroom below.

Where Can You Find the Right Podcasts for Your Lessons?

Fully convinced now of the advantages of using podcasts in your lessons? You may then wonder where to find the right podcasts for your classroom. In this part, I'll guide you through the search. I'll briefly present two of the main podcast listening platforms and offer some tips on finding the podcast episodes you're looking for.

1. Spotify

Spotify is not only great for music streaming, but it also offers a large selection of podcasts and podcast episodes. Spotify has a desktop version and a mobile app. Both offer free listening options, or you can choose a premium plan with additional features.

As a teacher, it's probably convenient to make an account. This will allow you to make playlists, add favorites, follow podcasts... Your students don't necessarily need an account, as you can share the direct link of an episode with them or embed it in a digital BookWidgets lesson (see below).

How to Find Good Educational Podcasts on Spotify?

Simply use the search option on the left side. If you already know the name of a podcast show you're looking for, it will be pretty easy to find it. But imagine you're looking for a specific episode about a certain topic or a certain person. Well, since Spotify is also a music streaming platform, search results are likely to contain songs, artists, and music albums as well. In that case, just scroll down until you find the podcast and episode results. Click on See all to get more results.

2. Apple Podcasts

As explained earlier, the pod in podcast comes from iPod, so it's probably not a surprise that there's a dedicated podcasts app available by default on any Apple device. Like Spotify, Apple Podcasts gives you access to a large selection of podcasts covering a wide range of topics.

A great thing about Apple Podcasts is that you can read Customer Reviews, which gives you a good first impression about the quality of a given podcast. Good to know: your students don't need an Apple device to listen to an episode on Apple Podcasts. They can play them in a browser if you share the direct link of an episode with them, or embed it in a digital BookWidgets exercise (see below).

How to Find Good Educational Podcasts on Apple?

When you place the cursor in the search bar on the left side, you can either start searching for specific topics or shows, or browse the different categories that Apple Podcasts proposes, e.g., Society & Culture, Education, Arts, Science, History, Technology, Fiction ...

3. Other Podcast Listening Platforms

Spotify and Apple podcasts are definitely two of the most well-known podcast listening platforms, but there are some other options like Soundcloud, Player FM, Castbox, TuneIn Radio ...

Before you start searching for podcasts and podcast episodes on one of these platforms, I advise you to check the following things:

• Are all the episodes available for free?
• Is this platform available on any device (Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS ...)? Usually, when you can open the episodes in the browser, there's no problem.
• Can you easily share the episodes with your students without them needing to create an account or install an application?
• Is it possible to embed these episodes on another website (like in BookWidgets)?

How to Use Podcasts in Class?

Now that you've found an interesting podcast episode for your lesson, you may wonder how you can use it in the classroom. Good news: the possibilities are endless! Below, we'll provide you with a few podcast activities and ideas for the classroom, including some ready-to-use lesson examples featuring podcasts. The first five activities are created with BookWidgets and can be used as ready-to-use digital exercises. Further down in this blog post, I'll explain how to create this type of exercise in BookWidgets and share it with your students.

1. Use Podcasts for Listening Comprehension in Language Courses

This is one of the most straightforward ways to use podcasts for listening comprehension in the classroom. Students listen to a podcast episode and answer questions about it. Depending on your learning goal, you can ask students to identify the main topic, analyze the structure, put events in chronological order, explore vocabulary, complete a transcription, or discuss the episode afterward.

💡 Tip: In most cases, it's a good idea to tell the students what they'll need to do before they start listening, so they'll know what to focus on.

Below, you'll find a ready-to-use example built around a hilarious episode of Tumble Science Podcast for Kids called The Poop Collector. I won't give you any spoilers and invite you to give it a listen.

2. Tickle the Imagination of Your Students With Storytelling Podcasts

Storytelling podcasts can bring stories to life and give students an opportunity to use their imagination while listening. You can pause an episode and ask students to imagine how the story ends, draw a scene, turn the story into a theater play, or even create and record their own story.

In the ready-to-use example below, students listen to the classic story of Little Red Riding Hood and draw a scene from the story. This activity works especially well on an iPad or tablet.

3. Use Podcasts for Dictations

Podcasts can make dictation activities more flexible and engaging. Instead of reading a text aloud to the whole class, you can let students listen to a podcast episode at their own pace. They can pause or rewind the audio whenever they need to.

In the ready-to-use example below, students transcribe part of a TED Talk. With BookWidgets, you can annotate specific parts of students' answers, making it possible to give specific and personalized feedback on their transcriptions.

4. Interview a Character for a Podcast

Turn your students into interviewers and invite them to step into the world of The Odyssey. Students first listen to and read along with a mythical podcast created with Brisk. They then use their understanding of the story and its characters to develop and record an interview with one of its characters.

The activity encourages students to explore a character's personality, perspective, and motivations while combining literary analysis with creative writing and speaking.

5. Let Your Students Create Their Own Podcast

Once students understand the concept of podcasts, why not let them create their own podcast episode? This activity guides students through the entire podcast production process, from brainstorming and scriptwriting to recording and self-evaluation.

Students can use the included podcast production guide to explore the anatomy of a five-minute podcast and a sample podcast script as inspiration. They then develop their own idea, write a script, record their podcast in BookWidgets, and use a self-evaluation rubric to reflect on their production process.

I'm sure your students will love this assignment!

6. Use a Podcast to Explain a Lesson Topic

Podcasts can be a great way to introduce or explain a lesson topic. Quantum physics, The Falklands War, or The Monty Hall Problem are just a few examples of topics you can explore through podcasts.

You could, for example:

• Flip the classroom: Ask students to listen to the podcast episode at home and discuss it in the next lesson.
• Differentiate learning: Use podcast episodes to provide extra explanations for students who need them or additional content for students who finish their work early.
• Practice summarizing: Ask students to take notes while listening and use them to summarize the main ideas of the episode.
• ...

7. Let Your Students Choose a Podcast About a Certain Topic and Present It

Your students have probably already done several book reviews in their school careers, so why not try a podcast review? Ask students to choose a podcast episode about a topic that interests them and prepare a presentation about its different elements, such as the hosts, guests, subject, structure, language, and style.

Students can also explain why they chose the podcast and what they like about it. This gives them an opportunity to practice listening, analyzing, and presenting while sharing their interests with the class. As a teacher, you may even discover some excellent new podcasts along the way.

Which podcasts to use in your lessons?

Apart from the podcasts already mentioned above, here are some other podcasts that could be a source of inspiration for your courses:

Science podcasts 👩🏻‍🔬

• Brains On!, a science podcast for kids
• The art of mathematics
• The Infinite Monkey Cage
• But why, a podcast for curious kids
• Science Talk, a podcast by Scientific American
• Geography Ninja, talks about cool Geography things
• Big Biology, tackling some of the biggest unanswered questions in biology.

Podcasts for language lessons 🇪🇺

• 6 minute English, by the BBC
• Français avec Pierre, a French podcast
• 1 jour, 1 actu, different topics explained in French
• News in slow Spanish
• Learn German with native speakers

Podcasts for history lessons 🏰

• Stuff you missed in history class
• The past and the curious, a history podcast for kids
• The History Hour, a history podcast by the BBC

Podcasts about economics and marketing 📈

• Economics explained
• Modern Marketing
• Trade Talks
• Tourism business chat

Other podcasts 🎲

• Stories Podcast, a storytelling podcast for kids
• Book club for kids, where middle graders talk about books
• Kidnuz, a podcast with daily news
• Everything everywhere daily

Podcasts for teachers 👨🏽‍🏫

• The cult of pedagogy podcast
• House of #EdTech
• The 10 minute teacher podcast
• The Teacher's Tool Kit For Literacy
• Tech Talk for teachers

How to use podcasts in BookWidgets?

BookWidgets is an online tool that enables teachers to create fun and interactive lessons for tablets, smartphones, and computers.As you might have seen in the ready-to-use examples above, podcasts and BookWidgets make a great combination for creating interactive activities and lessons.In this part, you'll find a step-by-step guide to creating BookWidgets exercises with podcast episodes. If you don't have a BookWidgets account yet, you can create one for free here.

Step 1: Find the right podcast episode and copy the embed code

With all the tips you've read earlier in this blog post, I guess you found some interesting podcast episodes for your lessons by now. What you probably want to try is to give your students access to both the podcast episode and your exercise on one and the same screen. Basically, you want to embed the podcast player directly in your BookWidgets exercise without having to download the audio. In IT terms, this is called embedding. All you have to find is an embed code, which you'll need to copy so you can paste it in BookWidgets later on.

How to find an embed code on Spotify

1. Open Spotify (browser or desktop version, both are fine)
2. Open the podcast episode that you want to embed in BookWidgets.
   
3. Click on the three dots, choose Share > Embed episode
4. Optionally, modify the background color and the size, and you can choose to start from a specific moment in the episode (this can be useful when the episode has a long intro).
5. Hit the Copy button.

How to find an embed code on Apple Podcasts

Getting the embed code from an episode on Apple Podcasts is a bit more challenging. Currently, obtaining the embed code is only possible in the browser. Unfortunately, searching for specific podcast episodes is not possible in the browser. However, with a little workaround, you'll be able to obtain the embed code, and it'll be a piece of cake next time.

1. Open Apple podcasts on your Macbook.
2. Open the podcast episode you want to embed in BookWidgets.
3. Click on the three dots, choose Copy link
4. Paste this link in your browser. You'll now open this episode in the browser.
5. Click on the Share icon, then on the Embed icon (</>).

If you don't have a MacBook or Apple Podcasts on your MacBook, you can simply search for the podcast in your browser, find the episode, and copy the embed code, as explained in step 5.

What if I can't find the embed code?

Most other podcast platforms will probably have a similar method to generate an embed code, but if you can't find it, you can try to just copy the URL from the address bar of your browser. With a bit of luck, you can still embed the podcast in your BookWidgets exercise. If not, you can put the link in your BookWidgets exercise or widget.

Step 2: Choose the right widget type

Go to your BookWidgets account and click on Create a widget. You'll now have to choose a widget type. BookWidgets offers many different interactive exercise types, so the best choice depends on what you want your students to do with the podcast episode.

You can add resources, such as a podcast episode, to any BookWidgets widget type. This means you can choose the widget that best matches your learning activity rather than choosing a specific widget just because you want to include a podcast.

For example, you could use a Quiz or Split Worksheet, or a Whiteboard if you want students to draw or annotate something while listening.

Choose the BookWidgets widget that best fits your learning goal, then add the podcast episode as a resource in the next step.

Step 3: Embed the podcast episode in your widget

Give your widget a name and add the podcast episode as a resource. Click the Resources tab, click Add resource, and choose Web embed. Under Link type, select I have an iframe embed code and paste your embed code into the Iframe embed code field.

Click on Preview in the top right corner to check if the podcast episode appears correctly.

You'll see the podcast appear on the left pane by default. You can change this layout if you like (more on that in Step 5).

If you don't have an embed code, you can try selecting the option I have a URL and paste the URL into the URL field. Not all websites support embedding, so if it doesn't work, embedding will not be possible, and you'll simply have to place the link somewhere in your widget.

Step 4: Add the questions (and the right answers)

If you've chosen a whiteboard, you can skip this step.

Start adding questions by choosing the question types you need. I'll give you a few suggestions for a listening comprehension exercise about a podcast episode:

• Text multiple choice question: you can choose the one with a single correct answer or the one with several correct answers
• Single line or multi-line text question: This allows your students to write an answer in a text box
• Fill-in-the-blank(s) question: a classic for listening comprehension
• Annotate picture: This one could be interesting if several geographical places are mentioned. You could add a map as a background picture and ask your students to identify specific features on it.
• Word ordering question: This question type can also be used for sentence ordering.
• Text: actually not a real question, but a possibility to add some extra explanation between the questions.

Add your questions and, if possible, the correct answers. This allows BookWidgets to automatically correct the students' answers... a big timesaver! Want more tips on making grading faster? Check out our blog post with 5 grading tips that will save you time.

Step 5: Configure some important options

There are a few options you should always check before sharing a widget with your students:

• Reporting - Enable submitting of answers: if this option is not checked, the students cannot submit their answers.
• General - Correction options - Show correct answers when quiz is done: if this option is not checked, the students will not see the correct answers after submitting their work.
• General - Scoring options - Show points associated with each question: If this option is not checked, students will not see how many points each question is worth.

I'm not going to present all other options in this blog post because most of them are quite obvious, and generally, you don't need to change the default settings. However, two options might be interesting in a widget about podcasts:

• In the Design part, you can change the position of the embedded podcast. Under the Split style, you'll see the default settings position the podcast on the left side and allocate it 50% of the space. If you like, you could put it on the right side and give it less space, e.g., 30%. This will give more space to the questions. Moreover, it could be interesting to change the split style to Vertical, so the podcast will appear on top or the bottom.
• Under Security - Exam mode, you can enable the exam mode and configure a time limit. This can be interesting if you want to use a podcast for a listening comprehension test. Imagine the episode takes 10 minutes; you could, e.g., configure a 30-minute time limit, so students have time to listen twice and answer the questions.

Step 6: Share the widget with your students

Once your widget is ready, there's just one step left: you want to share the widget with your students. If you're not working with an LMS (such as Google Classroom, MS Teams, or Moodle), simply click the Share button, copy the link, and send it to your students.

If you do use an LMS, you can share the widget directly through your learning platform. If you don't know how to do it, you'll find all the information you need in our webinars or tutorials:

• Share widgets in MS Teams for Education
• Share widgets in Google Classroom
• Share widgets in Moodle
• Share widgets in Canvas
• Share widgets in Schoology
• Share widgets in ItsLearning
• Share widgets in Blackboard

Once you've shared the widget with your students, you're done! While your students start the exercise, you could maybe listen to your favorite podcast's next episode? 😉

Wrap up

And that’s a wrap! Hopefully, these podcast activities and ideas for the classroom gave you some inspiration for bringing podcasts into your lessons. Whether you want to practice listening comprehension, explore a lesson topic, spark your students’ creativity, or have students create their own podcast, there are plenty of ways to make the most of this versatile format.

Want to come back to these ideas later? Save this BookWidgets group for inspiration. You’ll find all the activities from this blog post there, so you can revisit them whenever you’re looking for a new podcast activity or lesson idea.

If you try one of the activities, we’d love to see it! Share your classroom experience with us on Facebook or Instagram.

The best part? You can create and adapt podcast activities yourself with BookWidgets to fit your learning goals, subject, and students.

And most of all... enjoying listening!