How can you effectively integrate podcasting into educational settings without breaking the bank?

Join us and learn some of the best tech for educators on a budget, and the importance of recognizing and categorizing educational podcasts for broader visibility.

Today, we are chatting with Jeff Bradbury, the creator of TeacherCast, an educational channel devoted to helping teachers, administrators, and instructional coaches integrate technology into their classrooms effectively. With 13 years of experience in podcasting, Jeff has established himself as a bridge between educational technology and classroom application.

Jeff shares his journey, initial struggles with video editing software, and why he has stayed loyal to Final Cut Pro. He also delves into his technical setup and shares invaluable tips for podcasters aiming to reach new heights in audio and video quality.

If you’re engaged in podcasting and looking for proven, cost-effective solutions to achieve a professional sound and appearance for your show, you won't want to miss this episode!

In this episode we cover

1. The early technical challenges in podcasting: Jeff discusses his initial struggles with video editing software and why he has stayed loyal to Final Cut Pro.
2. Strategies and equipment for effectively integrating podcasting into educational settings without breaking the bank.
3. The importance of recognizing and categorizing educational podcasts for broader visibility.
4. Jeff’s current setup from the Rodecaster DUO, Shure SM7B, to other essential gear for creating professional-quality podcasts.

Subscribe to Jeff’s TeacherCast YouTube Channel

Follow TeacherCast on Twitter

Follow Jeff Bradburry on Twitter

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EQUIPMENT IN USE:

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Welcome to Podcasting Tech, a podcast that equips busy

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Matthew Passy, your host and a 15 year veteran in the podcasting space.

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Chatting today with Jeff Bradbury. He's the creator of TeacherCast,

and he has been doing the TeacherCast Educational Network for quite some time. I've known

him for, gosh, close to 10 years now, but it is always a pleasure to

chat with him. Jeff, thanks for being on the show. Great to see you, man.

How's everything? Everything is going well. How about yourself? Doing well. Happy

to be here. Excellent. So for those folks listening who aren't

familiar, tell us what TeacherCast is all about and what you podcast about

primarily. TeacherCast this year is celebrating its

13th anniversary. It's a it's a huge number right there.

But, essentially, we are an educational channel. We service teachers, administrators, and instructional

coaches trying to basically be that conduit between the educational

technology world and the classroom. I have an opportunity to help

teachers, create amazing digital learning lessons and also

interact with the educational companies that create the applications

that enable teachers to help their students meet those standards.

And how did you get started doing this 13 years ago, or why did you

get started? You know, I listened to a podcast,

actually. I found this podcast talking about, you know,

Apple products. It was called Your Mac Show. I met the guy just like

you and I talking. And next thing I know, he and I were doing a

show called AppleAid, you know, 2 guys talking about their phones.

This is back 2010. And I said to him, look. I'd

love to do something like this, but for teachers. And he says,

great, this is the last episode we're doing together. Go off

on your own. And it was just basically that, you know, mama bird throwing the

baby bird off the tree and saying, go fly. So

July 11, 2001, I said, alright. We're gonna do this. And I came up with

the logo, the first version of the website and,

a couple days later, you know, let's record the 1st TeacherCast

Podcast and the rest is history. So cool. So what were

some of the early issues that you dealt with more from the the tech side

of things that, you know, you had some help, it sounded like, in the

beginning, but, you know, what were some of the big hurdles you tried to overcome

at first? My 13 years of doing this happens

to coincide with Final Cut's 13 years of

doing this. So when I first got started here,

I tried to use imovie, but that

was back when Final Cut Studio was in its, you know, death days.

We didn't know it at the time, but that was the ending of that. And

I remember buying Final Cut Studio on disc, and then next thing

I know, Final Cut 10.0 comes along. And you

know, was it a $150 or whatever the price was? I've

never looked back. Every single thing that I've always done has been on Final

Cut. And I guess to say a

true answer to your question, the biggest

hurdles technological was that, number 1, I've been using the same application,

but number 2, kinda wish some of that application would grow up more.

There's a lot of you know, Adobe's got their things, and StreamYard's got their things,

and Riverside's got their things. But Final Cut's kinda stayed the same

with here's where we are. So, I mean, my my biggest hurdle is myself.

I just don't wanna change platforms at this point. Yeah. I mean, you get so

comfortable doing something. It's muscle memory. You just instinctually know how to do

it. When you try and switch programs, it's it's such a you feel

so clumsy, and it's so difficult, and you never take

the time. So you just revert back to old habits because you don't wanna waste

too much time. Well, people always ask what's, you know, what's the best program for

this and what's the best program for that, my answer is always simple. Which

one can you memorize the keyboard shortcuts for? It's ingrained in my

hand of you know, here's the blade tool and the cut tool and the

it okay. Fine. It's I'm using Final Cut.

(laughs) Well, and even today, the nice thing is you can kinda multistage your

production. Right? You can have your final cut for your basic editing

and then bring it into another program to maybe add some pizzazz or some jazz

or maybe do preliminary editing in somewhere else and then bring it over to Final

Cut for adding in transitions and different effects and, you know, lower thirds

and things like that. So it doesn't just have to be the one program that

you work with anymore. No. It doesn't. And many programs right now

are offering a lot of, you know, plugins and variations and things like that.

So, you know, I'm starting to figure out where to build your shorts

and where to build your other clips and audio, things and stuff like that. So

So after doing this for 13 years, what is the preliminary tech stack that

you're working with right now? Well, I upgraded recently to the

Rodecaster DUO after being an original RODECaster for a while.

I've got my Shure SM7B. I just upgraded to the

PSA what is it called? One plus.

I got 2 giant 47 inch force k

monitors, in front of me that I'm using. I've got 2,

Elgato cam lights, I think, is what they call them here.

And, of course, I've got my Logitech stuff. I got the MX,

MX 3 keyboard and mouse. And,

can't forget your stream deck in front of you, which I honestly, it stares at

me the entire day. I can't remember the last time that I even used it,

but it's right it's right there. It's kinda fun to look at. Yeah. It is

it is a fantastic device, but you really have to have a lot of shortcuts

in your life programmed into it, or you have to be doing, like, a lot

of live switching in production to really get the most out of it. Fair. Right?

I forget that it's even existing half the time. Yeah. I

sometimes feel the same way. What about for your camera? Currently, I'm using

a Logitech BRIO. It's a 4 k camera. And even with that, it's

you know, I I'm not recording in 4 k. I I was

cleaning up the the room today. I think I've got 3, c 9

twenties. I have a couple AI cameras. And

so, and then, my friends at Logitech just sent me a Mevo,

so I'm looking forward to trying that out. Those Mevos are really it's a fantastic

unit, especially if you're trying to capture ISO recordings

because each one of those cameras has its own SD card built into it.

Plus you have the, you know, iPhone or iPad app for controlling what's

going on in those cameras. So if you wanna do live switching during a stream,

it's super easy. The only downside I find is that because they're only

Tech 80, the minute you have to zoom in whether it's

on the camera itself or when you're doing your editing, it it just like it

pixelates quickly. So you gotta be real up close and personal with those cameras.

And for me, you know, the majority of the stuff I do is audio.

So, you know, I'm gonna be moving more towards video this

year now that I'm up in my new studio, is all looking nice and things

like that. But, I mean, most of my stuff is primary audio. And

so for me, just get in, get the audio done. Final Cut is

my audio editor because it's all got the, you know, the Apple Logic back

end and stuff like that. So, you know what? We're having fun here. Like I

mentioned, I just got done today, in fact, finalizing what

the studio is gonna look like, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the

year. Nice. So take us through that duo real quickly. What made you go with

the Rodecaster duo versus something else? $200 less.

(Mathew breaks out laughing) That was the answer. Right? Like, you know, I knew that

I was gonna go for the RODECaster 2. When I was using the RODECaster

1 for the last many years, it was the Shure into the

DBX286s, which, you know, it's a nice

machine, but number 1, it doesn't have an off switch. And number 2, so

many knobs and switches. How do you know you've got the thing dialed

in? So I knew that when the Rodecaster switched over, it

was just a matter of time. And now it's I mean, how

does it sound? Right? Like, it's just a matter of plugging everything in, hitting the

right buttons, and running with it. It's literally as plug and play as you possibly

can get. Yeah. I mean, I tried that Rodecaster 2 for a while when it

first came out, and my my struggle with it was is that it was so

much better or so much more advanced that it became so complicated.

And my fear was if that if clients had a problem with it, I wouldn't

be able to walk them through because so many things can go wrong so

easily. Whereas, with the original Rodecaster, somebody could call me. I could be driving. I

don't even need it in front of me. I could tell you exactly where to

go, exactly what the problem is. But, once I saw that duo, right, this

little tiny box that you could fit on your desk with just the 2 inputs

because, come on, most of the time we're podcasting from home. We don't need 4

mics, right, in our in our offices or our basements and whatnot.

It's just a great device, and I I am looking forward to getting my hands

on one of those And the nice thing is is if you are working with

clients, I mean, it's all into Rodecaster Connect or whatever they're calling

that software. So in other words, you can do a screencast with a client,

and all of the programming is on their desktop screen.

Yeah. That is, that that's that's pretty nice.

So since you work with teachers, since you work with educators, since

usually, you know, there are budget constraints and budget issues, What's

typically your recommendation for them as far as what kind of equipment to get

to be able to do the job well?

I'm glad you asked that. And for the last decade or so, it's

always been how do you define the term Podcaster? I mean, I do work a

lot with school districts who want to do live morning announcements. Right?

And a live morning announcement could be as easy as just get

on to StreamYard, and you're good. Right? A live

morning announcement could be everybody get on to a Google Meet or a Microsoft Team

or something to that effect. Right? I am the guy that comes around that

says, you don't need any of this stuff. You have a Chromebook that's worth $200?

You can make a podcast. You can use their editing. You can use their whatever

it happens to be. If you are gonna go up a notch, yeah, get yourself

a decent webcam. Even a couple years ago when I was teaching middle

school and and starting this particular school district that had

morning announcements, my camera was a Brio, and I had it on a

tripod, and I had a a 15 foot extension USB cord

so that way it could get farther back and and take a wide shot

of everything. And you know what? That was perfectly fine.

I think that the Podmegs are great. I

think if you can afford a Rodecaster,

fantastic, but you don't need to. You can look at

all the stuff that Rode offers, Logitech offers, and for, like,

$600, if that, you could have a nice little setup

for a school to create anything.

Incredible. You could definitely tell that Jeff is a podcaster because you asked him a

question and he has a nice tight but full of information

answer. You're extremely detailed and yet

extremely concise in the way you talk. It's clear you've been behind the microphone

for over a decade doing this kind of stuff. It's all fun.

So as a reminder, check out the teachercast educational network at

teachercast.net. Before we let you go, we have a few questions that we're asking

everybody in the show. One is, is there a place in the podcasting

world where you would like to see some improvement, not

just from the technology side, but maybe software distribution?

Like, what's what's the thing that you wanna see fixed ASAP?

Recognition. I have seen so

many I don't wanna say awards, but let's call it

that. Right? You know? Nominate your favorite podcast

in, and then they list a bunch of categories, or

nominate your favorite pie you know, it's that kind of a thing.

Right? When you're a teacher creating a

podcast, naturally, you put yourself in education. But,

Matt, you're doing a show teaching somebody about studio.

Technically, you could call yourself an educational channel too.

It's recognition. Right? We have

a lot of teachers who are not in the

studio sponsor me 100,000,000 downloads.

You know? We've got teachers who are building professional

development for other teachers. I would love to see some

recognition for that. And, you know, I talk about this a lot with some

of the, also, the bigger names that are out there. I don't wanna give out

other names right now. But, you know, when can teachers

start to be recognized for the work that they are doing? And I advocate

that a lot with people who you and I both mutually know with each

other. And how do we get teachers

recognized beyond that? If I go into the educational

channel on any platform, you're

very hard pressed to find a teacher

podcast, but there's hundreds of them out there.

And so because of that, I created the educational podcast directory. I

reached out to hundreds of teachers who are doing this, and they said, give

me all your information. I stuck it on a big spreadsheet, made it visual,

and I now have that over on Teachercast. It's, like, 400 different teachers.

It's I always say it's the world's largest educational podcast

directory because it's only teachers.

And I wish that there was some kind of a way to be

recognized as our own category. So you can call it education, but

let's make one for K12. Apple used to have that, and then

they took it away. Yeah. I feel like I don't know why the

categories are so restrictive or why they

are set up the way that they are set up. I feel like there's a

lot of different types of podcasts out there that are hard to

fit into the current boxes that are available in the podcasting world,

and I don't understand why it has to be so narrowly

defined, why they can't broaden out the categories and the niches and

all that things. And I don't know what you categorize this

particular show in. I would like to see it be a how

to versus being, quote, education. That's my goal. That's

that's the difference. Right? Like, there's a how to is how do you paint a

wall, how do you make a website, how do you whatever it is. For

me, education, I define that as K12 or K20.

Coming out of an academic institution should have the education tag and not everybody else

is just, you know, like I said, doing a how to. So since

we're talking about podcast, I'm gonna skip one question, come back to in a second.

What is the best podcast that you are listening to

today? Right? Like, what is the show or a couple of shows that as

soon as they hit your device, they are definitely getting

listened to that day or or very quickly? I listen to a lot of

wrestling podcasts. I love the storytelling. I

love how they can capture an audience.

Right? These are guys that are professionals at getting on a

microphone. And as you just basically said, you have 2 minutes, get your

point across, get off the window, and go. And I learn a

lot from that. I kinda have a stand-up

comics approach to podcasts, meaning I don't listen to

other educational podcasts. I don't really listen to a lot of my friends'

shows. I don't want my own

show starting to sound like somebody else's. And

and I picked that up from listening to stand up comics.

You know? They of course wanna go to the club. They wanna support their friends

and all that stuff, but they don't wanna listen to it because they don't

want their own act sounding like somebody else's.

And so where I support all of my friends and all my, you know, friends'

Podcasting and your shows and all these other things, I'm listening

to something completely different, but I'm

listening to those shows to learn what does an intro sound like, what does

a closing sound like, how do you do guests, And I'm trying to pick apart

not just the context because I love wrestling, but how do you

actually put together a promo? And I try to bring that into my show.

Very interesting. Is there a particular wrestling podcast you'd want to, mention?

I've been a something to wrestle with Bruce Pritchard for a long time. I

just you know, it's all the nostalgic of what happens in the eighties with

wrestling in early nineties and stuff. You know, the child of the eighties

comes back out all the time. The glory days. The whole clothing,

years. Alright. Well, since you just redid your studio, this might

be a difficult question to ask, but I'm always curious. Is there a

piece of tech that you really have on your wish list? Whether

it's something that exists right now that you know you wanna purchase or

even something that you would like to see created to solve a

particular problem that you have. I need an editor.

(Mathew breaks out laughing) And I know exactly what you're thinking, Matt. My editors are

10 years old, and they're going to bed right now. But, I have

been able to, for a budget, put

together the setup that I need. And, yes,

it's easy to go on to YouTube and look at the big setups

and things. But the point is you and I are not

having 5 or 6 professional guests in

our living room. And so heavy lights,

heavy scenery, chairs, boom arms out

the lot, we don't need any of that stuff. We need to

have the ability to sound good, and we need to have the ability

to quickly turn around an episode. And, you

know, we're recording this in the beginning of March. I've got

shows lined up every single weeknight for the

next 4 weeks. I need to be able to come in, record, turn

around, and and dump it out as quickly as possible.

So, you know, we were going back to final cut, and and, you know, what's

my apps of choice? I need to have something that's gonna help me do

that as quickly as possible, and that's that's why I've stuck with Final Cut. I

can take an hour long show. And because I'm recording it for

my editor, my editor being me,

I'm recording it in a certain way so that way I can do 10 minutes

and it's done. Very, very impressive. Well, if

you wanna check out that work, it's at teachercast.net. You could check out Jeff's show

in particular or any of the 400 plus shows or if you're a teacher, check

out the Teachercast educational network. We've been chatting with the creator of

the teacher cast network. He's also a dad of lovely triplets

as he alluded to a little bit earlier. Jeff Bradbury, thank

you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much, my friend.

Thanks for joining us today on Podcasting Tech. There are links to all

the hardware and software that help power our guest content

and podcasting tech available in the show notes and on our

website at podcastingtech.com. You can also subscribe to

the show on your favorite platform, connect with us on social media, and even leave

a rating and review while you're there. Thanks, and we'll see you next

time on Podcasting Tech.