I created a podcast about the potentialities and risks of driving social change that activists face, particularly those that are active on social media. There was another topic to choose from that was solely about education, however I believed I could put my own education spin on the topic I chose, which was more so about activists on social media. Therefore, my strategy for taking on this podcast episode was to talk about two activists that hold true passions for me and whom I already followed on a variety of my social media accounts, Malala Yousafzai and Chloe Hayden otherwise known as Princess Aspien.

By combining my two passions of education and disability, I started to explore the ideology surrounding the term, ‘inclusive education’. As stated in the podcast, inclusive education according to Plows & Whitman is ‘the ideology that everyone can participate in learning and teaching…’ (2017, p.3). I first discussed the work of Malala Yousafzai in regard to global access to education. When she was fifteen years old, Malala was shot by the Taliban for her advocacy for girls receiving an education. ‘I didn’t see the two young men step out onto the road and bring the van to a sudden halt. I didn’t get to answer the question, ‘Who is Malala?’ or I would have explained to them why they should let us girls go to school as well as their own sisters and daughters…’ (Yousafzai & Lamb 2013, p.203).   I also spoke about how in the podcast that I have grown up with autism in my family I wanted to include a mention of Chloe Hayden in my podcast because she is a shining advocate for not only autism, which she has, but her philosophy ‘different not less’ can be applied to any disability or hardship a child may experience in and outside the classroom.

To create my podcast, I did planning and research first. I made sure to write a script for the podcast so that I did not miss any vital information that I wanted to say to my audience. I then recorded a draft and realised it was too short. I had limited the information in the initial script because I was worried about going over time. Once I realised I needed more time, I put in that extra information. I even came across an interview that Chloe Hayden did on the 26^th of May, which was a coincidence, so I added in a bit about what she talked about on the radio too.

The music throughout my podcast is a lofi hip-hop track called ‘chillin’ by the artist, ‘cløudd’. There was no deeper meaning to using this track other than it had the Creative Commons license I needed to be able to use it in the episode, ‘Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)’. This means that I am able to manipulate the track and share it for non-commercial use. Further, I believe that when people listen to a podcast they are often looking to wind down or are driving.

I have spoken about some of the challenges I’ve faced prior but my main challenge in creating this podcast was condensing my research down to the right amount of information for a short episode of 4-6 minutes. Benefits and risks for activists online who are driving social change is such a broad topic and I feel that I have only scratched the surface and given a summary of why I admire such activists in my podcast episode.

I hope you enjoy my podcast!

References

Chillin’, cløudd, Soundcloud, https://soundcloud.com/clouddbeats/free-chill-lofi-hip-hop-beat, date retrieved: 21 May 2019

Plows, V, Whitman, B 2017, Inclusive Education: Making Sense of Everyday Practice, Sense Publishers, 24 May 2019.

Yousafzai, M, Lamb, C 2013, I Am Malala, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London

94.1FM, radio show, 94.1FM, Melbourne, 26 May.