It's before school on a crisp Friday morning in Carlsbad, Calif. Andrew Luria is rallying the kids in his newsroom. "How many of you guys didn't do your homework?" Luria asks the 10- and 11-year-old journalists.
Nearly half the students in his broadcasting club, sitting on the floor of their multipurpose room, raise their hands. "Wow, my own daughter?" he responds with a laugh. "You're in trouble!" Their assignment, written on the whiteboard filled with this month's production calendar, was to listen to an episode of a podcast.
The students of MagTV at Magnolia Elementary School know all about podcasts: Last year, they made their own. It told the story of their classmate who had a sudden and life-changing accident, and it was chosen as one of the fourth grade winners of NPR's Student Podcast Challenge . Bouncing Back Their podcast starts with dramatic music, and then a student's voice: "Imagine this: You're at a birthday party.
You're playing with your little sister, bouncing on the trampoline, and then, in an instant, everything changes." Bouncing Back follows Leeland Corman, who experienced a severe brain injury that day. "Leeland was in the hospital for five months, but he wasn't alone," another student says in the podcast.
Leeland's mom, Maggie Corman, and sister, Lily, kept him company. His classmates came to visit, and his teacher stopped by a couple of times a week. His friends and family even wrote to Leeland's favorite hockey club, the Los Angeles Kings, who replied .
