Kathryn Boyd is an English teacher at Smithers Secondary School. On the walls of her classroom are questions to be answered by her students about stories. The crux of these questions is how we understand each other, and what ways we ingest stories.

Boyd has been using alternative methods for her students to engage in stories. She has used poetry, videos, oral storytelling and totem poles to "read" in new ways.

She invited CICK News to teach her class about podcasting. Podcasting is a relatively new form of storytelling and many of her students were new to the medium.

Over two weeks, they worked on a project called People of Smithers, a podcast project in which students would interview someone around the school and create an audio profile of their subject. They utilized iPads to do the interviewing and editing, added music, wrote intros and worked as a class to create their questions based on the person they were going to interview.

Boyd had just completed a post graduate diploma on Teacher Libranianship, as a way to provide technology opportunities for students in the classroom. She was inspired to "try to teach English in a new way and allow students an opportunity to see that students could share information using tools to articulate themselves in a new way".

The finished pieces were a variety of interview styles but each student showed good understanding of the project and hopefully, a new swath of podcasters hungry to do more in the medium.

Listen to Kathryn Boyd's interview (as well as one of the student's finished project) in the link below and check out the projects in this page on the CICK website.