Teaching Tech and Podcasting with Richard Curtis

Meet Richard Curtis, a passionate educator who transformed his background in news and radio broadcasting into a 15-year teaching career at Lancaster High School. In this enlightening conversation, Richard shares how his industry experience perfectly positioned him to teach digital media and emerging technologies to today's students.

Website: spotlight4success.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Spotlight for Success by American Book
Company.
I'm Devin Pintosi, your host.
We are here at the ISTE ASCDconference in sunny San Antonio,
Texas.
We are here with our specialguest, Richard Curtis.
Richard is joining us withLancaster ISD, Lancaster High
School.
Richard, nice to see you today.
It's good to see you.

(00:26):
All right, Can you tell us abit about what brings you here
to ISD A-S-C-D?

Speaker 3 (00:31):
I'm a tech teacher, I teach tech, I teach emerging
tech.
So I've got to know tech, I'vegot to know emerging tech.
And so what do teachers do?
They come to these things tolearn and to see all the new
things and to take all thatstuff back to their students in
the classroom.
That's what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Awesome, and can you tell us a bit about your journey
here in the journalism?
How long have you been inteaching directing journalism in
your high school?

Speaker 3 (00:59):
I've been teaching for 15 years.
I've been at the same schoolfor 15 years.
Okay, I absolutely love it atthat school and at that district
.
I could not imagine beinganywhere else.
I love those kids, I love thedistrict, I love the community.
It is awesome.
It is wonderful.
Before that, I was in news, Iwas in radio.
So being able to teach digitalmedia is right.

(01:23):
Where I grew up anyway, that'samazing.
You came out of industry, cameout of industry, moved into
educating and then I'm able tostart teaching basically radio
again.
Just, we're not pumping overthe airwaves, we're pumping over
the interwebs.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Oh well, wonderful, I understand, you do podcasting
as well.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Thank you for watching Spotlight for Success.
I am Devin Pintosi, chiefOperating Officer of American
Book Company.
We are located here in ourheadquarters in Woodstock,
georgia.
All of our materials areprinted in USA.
We have course books, e-booksand online testing in grades

(02:06):
K-12 in mathematics, ela,science and social studies.
These materials are alldesigned to help students
achieve higher scores on theirstate-specific high-stakes
assessments.
We guarantee score improvementinvestments.

(02:27):
We guarantee score improvement.
You can get free samples of ourmaterials either in print or in
electronic formats atabck12.com.
We look forward to hearing fromyou.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
We do.
We have under the banner ofWebo Podcast Network, w-e-b-o
Webo Podcast Network.
You can look that on yourfavorite podcast app.
We have two that are goingright now.
Well, we're on summer break,but we have a sports podcast
right, because sports are hislow-hanging fruit Tiger Sports

(02:58):
Page.
That's been going on for twoyears.
And then we have one thatstarted last year which is
called A Different Pod, where wehave our Gen Z students
watching A Different World,which is from my generation.
It's a Gen X program, okay, andnormally watching it for the

(03:20):
first time and then discussingit and analyzing it with their
Gen Z thought processes and GenZ ideas about social, how
society should be, and it turnsout wonderfully.
But that's a different pod andwe did the entire first season
of the program last year andthat is all out and it came out

(03:42):
wonderfully.
We're going to launch two morenext year.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Oh, wow, that's wonderful, that's ambitious
getting all of those programsgoing and what are you hoping to
get out of the ASCD ISTEexperience here this weekend?

Speaker 3 (03:57):
I'm open to just about anything.
I am an open book.
I am a sponge.
I just want to learn.
I am a lifelong learner.
I just want to learn.
If there's something I don'tknow about, I want to figure it
out.
There's plenty of AI here,brand new, emerging.
I'm going to learn about that.
I want to talk to people aboutpodcasting, about promoting

(04:22):
podcasts.
I want to talk to people aboutwhatever I can talk to them
about.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Oh, that's wonderful.
Wow, this is great.
So that's great.
Is there anything else you'dlike to share with the ASCD SD
community?

Speaker 3 (04:37):
I'm just happy to be here, man.
This thing is amazing.
This is amazing and it's nuts.
This place is huge.
It's huge, man.
This is like walking aroundyour classroom for four straight
days, getting around thisconvention center.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
No kidding, it's really awesome.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
I'm having the time of my life.
I'm having a ball.
I'm loving it.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
That's great.
Thank you so much.
This is Richard Currious, againwith Lancaster ISD, Lancaster
High School.
Thank you for joining us today,Richard, Absolutely Thank you.