Helping students get a grasp on recording, TV teacher Richard Curtis used money from a grant from the Indian Valley Education Foundation to create a podcast room that all students can use.
“Kids should be getting behind a mic and just let their wings spread a little bit,” Curtis said.
The podcast room is currently still only for use of the RedAlert students, but will open up to the whole school shortly.
“Right now I’m just keeping it in the RedAlert bubble. When Lunch N’ Learn hits, I could see that being an endless loop of people that want to produce their own stuff,” Curtis said.
According to Executive Director RuthE S. Potter, this grant application is one of 40 that were received by the organization this year.
“Each year, we have what they call the teacher innovation grant program, and it is available to all teachers and administrators across the district,” Potter said. “The more support we get the more funding we are able to offer.
In order to apply for the grant, five criteria points must be met.
The grants are awarded, “on the basis of creativity, originality, and long term sustainability beyond this initial seed funding.”
According to the Indian Valley Education Foundation website, the goal of these grants is to, “provide teachers with the opportunity to give life to ideas that they would like to integrate into their classrooms.”
Once Curtis got the grant, local businesses started to donate items for the podcast room.
“I started cold calling businesses, got the carpeting back there, all the tables and chairs from 309 Office Furniture, the carpet came from Harleysville Carpet, the TV came from Ed’s TV. People were, “Oh cool you got a grant? Sweet yeah, we’ll help,” Curtis said.
According to Potter, this year the foundation decided to give more money to each of the grant recipients.
“This is the first year that we went up to $1,200, and I’m hoping to continue to see that dollar amount increase, because I think the need is there and it really gives opportunities for our kids and our teachers to do really cool stuff,” Potter said.
The grant that Curtis received from IVEF allowed him to convert what once was a closet into a recording studio for a new RedAlert project known as RedAlert Radio.
Seniors Nick Gonce and Nick Guthre use the room to produce the RedAlert podcast known as the “Nick and Nick Podcast.”
According to Guthre, the podcast will cover any and all topics.
“It’s gonna be a guy talk in a sense, with a few guests. We’re gonna try and have some people and try and mix it up. We really talk about anything and everything,” Guthre said.
Gonce says that while he and Guthre do have a list of things they decide to talk about, most of the podcast is made up, “on the spot.”
“We sit down, press record, get the software ready, take the headphones off and say “All right, what are we gonna talk about?” then “alright, cool, great”, then put on the headphones and just go,” Gonce said.
While the main people on the podcast are Gonce and Guthre, the two encourage students to take part in the show.
“DM us @nickandnickpodcast on instagram if you want to be on the podcast,” Guthre said.