# Ignacio Azcueta, Podcasting Workshop


Media & Design Fellow Ignacio Azcueta (RLL) led a podcasting workshop on Tuesday, October 12 for his class, Spanish 50: Advanced Spanish II: Creative Writing and Performance. The course initially developed a podcasting assignment during the fully remote school year of 2021 - 2022, since this mode allows students to record in their homes. Ignacio used the opportunity of everyone returning to campus to build out the podcast assignment, including making use of the Learning Lab studio.

Ignacio felt that the podcast assignment, though still a great fit, had an opportunity to be elevated. "I thought, 'Well, why don't I kick it up a notch and start bringing students here [to the Learning Lab] and have them think more about form?''"

In the workshop, the students did a close-reading of a podcast episode. They deconstructed its parts, analyzing how the music rhetorically and formally functions, how the different voices work, how the setup of the of the episode was constructed, and how the episode unfolded to achieve a specific narrative arc. Then, Ignacio helped students think through what they could do for their own podcast assignments.

Though the office hours Ignacio had planned to allow groups to record their assignments in the studio ended up needing to be cancelled due to unexpected HVAC issues in the building, the students were characteristically flexible, having adapted throughout the Covid-19 pandemic to unforeseen circumstances. Importantly, the students embraced and were cushioned by the knowledge they had as a result of the Learning Lab workshop's activities.

Student assignments submitted, Ignacio reflected on the podcasts his students created and was especially struck by the way they played with form. This, after all, was one of his original goals: "Creativity, a lot of times has to do with imagination and invention," Ignacio said. "But here it also had to do with montage, with an imaginative use of the materials already available. I saw that students were very creative in their use of music and the way they combined the different characters." In foregrounding many of these same elements, the workshop equipped students to use these techniques in their own production processes.

Ignacio expressed appreciation for the support of the Learning Lab. "I had a great time working with this assignment in the Lab. I would like to mention that the workshop wasn't entirely my invention. I learned the skills to build my own version of the workshop from Marlon [Director of the Learning Lab] and from Jordan [Assistant Director of the Learning Lab]... I would like to thank both of them for their instruction and their support. I would also like to thank Casey [Learning Lab Studio Coordinator] as well, who participated in the workshop with the installation of the stages."