My EdTech Life

Episode 311: Harmony Jiroudek

• Fonz Mendoza • Season 1 • Episode 311

Share episode

Send us a text

Episode 311: Transforming Audio with Adobe Podcast with Harmony Jiroudek

What if creating professional-grade audio was just a few clicks away? In this episode, I sit down with Harmony Jiroudek, Customer Education and Success Lead at Adobe Podcast, to explore how this AI-powered platform is transforming the world of audio creation!

🔹 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✅ How Adobe Podcast evolved from an enhanced speech tool to a full-suite podcasting powerhouse 🛠
✅ AI-driven features like remote recording, text-based editing, and speech enhancement 🎙
✅ Why educators and content creators should embrace podcasting for storytelling, collaboration, and creativity 🏫
✅ Breaking barriers: Practical steps for integrating podcasting into classrooms and libraries 📚
✅ The power of authenticity and digital storytelling—and how these tools help amplify your voice 🎤✨

🌟 Whether you're an educator, a podcaster, or a creative storyteller, this episode will inspire you to take your audio content to the next level!

🔗 Try Adobe Podcast & Express for yourself: podcast.adobe.com

💡 How do you see podcasting shaping education and content creation? Drop a comment below! ⬇️

🔔 Like, subscribe, and help us hit 1K subscribers! Subscribe here!

🎧 Listen to more episodes at MyEdTech.Life

Authentic engagement, inclusion, and learning across the curriculum for ALL your students. Teachers love Book Creator.

Yellowdig is transforming higher education by building online communities that drive engagement and collaboration. My EdTech Life is proud to partner with Yellowdig to amplify its mission.

See how Yellowdig can revolutionize your campus—visit Yellowdig.co today!

Support the show

Fonz:

Hello everybody and welcome to another great episode of my EdTech Life. Thank you so much for joining me on this wonderful day and, wherever it is in the world that you're joining us from, thank you, as always, for all of your support. We appreciate all the likes, the shares, the follows. Thank you so much for just listening to our content. We appreciate all the likes, the shares, the follows. Thank you so much for just listening to our content and finding value in it, because we have definitely seen those download numbers go up and, as you know, we do what we do for you to bring you some amazing conversations, and today is definitely no different.

Fonz:

Today we are going into the world of podcasts and we're going to be specifically talking about Adobe Podcasts and I'm just really excited to welcome a phenomenal guest that I had the pleasure of just kind of dropping in on a live event that they were doing and I was like, oh my gosh, like everything kind of lined up, I need to make sure that I have Harmony Jurudic here on the show and today she is our wonderful guest. So, harmony, how are you doing today?

Harmony Jiroudek:

I'm doing well, fonz. Thanks so much for having me. I can't believe we're already into February and, yeah, super excited to be here.

Fonz:

Oh you're telling me, I mean living in the world of education, I mean time is definitely flying. I mean, yeah, so I totally, totally I mean, but thank you so much for being here and I'm glad, like I said, I dropped in into that live session that you guys were doing and Dave Jackson was. It was his turn at that time and I was like, oh okay, I know Dave and I'm very familiar with Dave, so it was fantastic to be able to see you and connect with you through that live event and now to have you as a guest and continue our podcast conversation. I'm really excited about that. So, before we get started, if you can give us a little brief introduction and what your context is within the podcast space, that would be something fantastic for our audience members to know. Within the podcast space, that would be something fantastic for our audience members to know.

Harmony Jiroudek:

Yeah, happy to. So I currently lead customer education and success for Adobe Podcast. We are a relatively younger product within the larger Adobe ecosystem so product's been around a little over a year now. Previously I was at a company called Descript, a similar product, so been in the podcasting product space for, yeah, four plus years now at this point.

Fonz:

Excellent, so we're going to go ahead and dive in. And what you mentioned is that the Adobe for podcasting is a little younger and I know we were talking a little bit pre-chat and I brought up the fact that having the opportunity to be an Adobe innovator and making my chance, or getting a chance, excuse me to travel to Lehigh two years ago that is the first time that I was introduced to Adobe podcast and just to see from that back then two years ago to where it was just a week ago when I was presenting at TCA.

Fonz:

It was just a week ago when I was presenting at TCA and, like I mentioned to you, then I came back and I just kind of started messing around with it and I was like whoa, when did this get added? And I was like I didn't see anything, any announcements or anything like this is fantastic, but tell me about that journey you know as far as the team is concerned and your work within that team.

Harmony Jiroudek:

Sure, yeah. So for folks that are brand new to Adobe Podcast, in short, it's a AI-powered audio recording and editing tool really designed to help podcasters and content creators create high-quality audio content without getting bogged down by the technology. So it's super simple to use and it actually started off as kind of like a what we call a quick action, the enhanced speech feature, which I think you're familiar with. Initially it was just that it was this landing page where you could go drop in your audio. It would remove background noise and echo and it would make it sound like you recorded it in a professional studio. So initially it was just that and from there then we were like, okay, where, where can we take this?

Harmony Jiroudek:

And so we saw, you know, there was a need within Adobe, like like, we don't have like a tool that that's out there for recording podcasts, so let's build remote recording into the product as well. So we have this feature called Studio that allows you to do remote recording, send a guest a link, or you can do solo recording as well. As soon as you're done, it transcribes everything and you can do text-based editing. And there's great like built-in royalty-free music, and we actually just added to the music library. So lots going on.

Fonz:

And that is a lot because, like I mentioned to you, we just got a little glimpse there and, mind you, this is a room full of Adobe for Education innovators, so we're all you know in the K-12 classrooms, whether we are in the classroom or supporting teachers in the classroom and students and so on. So when I got a glimpse of this, I was before going to Lehigh. I had already been familiar and seen it through another friend of mine. His name is Dylan Schmidt. Great podcast.

Harmony Jiroudek:

Yeah, digital.

Fonz:

Yeah, he's awesome, yeah, he was on my show and so he obviously he's always like putting out content and he did a video like that. And as I started using it, I was like this is fantastic. Just for cleaning up that audio I mean, even if you're using the voice memo notes on your phone and do a quick recording and then to be able to drop it in and clean that up, I mean I was like don't have to worry about you know, $400 mics are up and all of these interfaces and so on, and now you can just do that here, drop it in and all of a sudden it's like super clean, nice audio, and then you can.

Fonz:

What I love is the little slider where you can kind of leave just a little bit of that little background, if you want, just for that ambience and all that good stuff. But to see what it has turned into now recently and like I mentioned to you being able to present this at TCEA last week. We definitely got a lot of great feedback, and I say we just because I'm a user, but I mean I just wanted to let you know that people were very, very happy, especially with the transcript editing portion.

Fonz:

And so, as an educator, many of the classroom uses of podcasting have been, to you know, show content, content mastery, learning and knowledge show content, content mastery, learning and knowledge.

Fonz:

But now having been able to do this and seeing the transcript and students being able to clean up and edit the audio and removing some of these verbal crutches that you hear me sometimes with the uhs, the ums and the plosives, is something that is fantastic, and so it's been great to see the product grow. So I'm just really excited to learn a little bit more about where this may be going. But before we get into that, I know you kind of told us a little bit of the story there and you know, I guess, removing some of those barriers. But I wanted to ask you, just because of your background and where it is that you're coming from in the podcast space and bringing that experience into Adobe for Podcast. I didn't even get to ask you and I'm sure that our audience is wanting to know is how did you, harmony, get into podcasting or now being part of the podcast world?

Harmony Jiroudek:

Yeah, yeah, it definitely wasn't expected. I'll say that right out the gate. I'm a musician at heart. That's what I actually did my undergrad and graduate studies in, and so, thinking about my career path, it certainly has not been linear.

Harmony Jiroudek:

One thing that I did right out of school is I actually started working for the institution I went to. It's called California Institute of the Arts and I loved just like working with students, helping them. Like you know, we would do informational sessions, we'd talk about all of the you know six different departments and be like OK, so you're interested in music technology, let's dig into that a little bit more. What type of skills are you trying to hone? And so became a counselor and recruiter, working at a startup where it was all about making arts education more accessible to students around the world. Because I I feel very privileged that I got to go to a school like this, but I had to take out student loans and I was still paying them back, um, so you know would the goal of that startup was really to just make that type of education more accessible, to get college credit, um, and through that.

Harmony Jiroudek:

That's kind of when my e-learning journey started. So we built a learning management system from the ground up that was really bespoke to the arts and creative technology. So I was. I wore many hats, I was a producer, won win-win support team for a while, and so we took on-campus courses and then turned them to. It was like during the mooc boom where, like Coursera, edx, so we did pre-production, brought instructors to our green screen, filmed them fast forward. Then I segued into like kind of like HR compliance training, got a little bit more familiar with Cornerstone, lms and building that, those types of online courses.

Harmony Jiroudek:

And then I say then, then at that point I segued it to Descript and I fell in love with the product. It's like this this is great, there's so many things that you can do with it. And that's kind of when my podcasting journey began.

Fonz:

That is fantastic. Now let me ask you too, being like you mentioned your passion for music. I myself, too, am very passionate about music and play several instruments, but is there a particular instrument that you grew up playing that you really favor, or are you just like myself, kind of like a multi-passionate creative and you just learn a little bit of every instrument?

Harmony Jiroudek:

Yeah, so I'm primarily a vocalist, but I grew up taking piano lessons before vocal lessons, so it was great having that foundational knowledge kind of branched into like doing some singer, songwriter stuff, but then trained classically as a vocalist.

Fonz:

Nice, excellent. Well, I mean all of that, I think honestly really ties into your current work and, like you know you mentioned you know you went from that to a different company, descript and then you know, learning about that and then just now also coming out to Adobe and just to be able to help and grow that and have that vision too as well. I think that that's something that is fantastic. So your experience, you know, now you worked for this company, descript, and then now you work for Adobe. How long were you at Descript for?

Harmony Jiroudek:

About like three and a half years or so, and Descript is also a startup. You know I started when there were a little less than 50 people there and now it's like I think it's tripled at this point and I think you know for me I was primarily working with enterprise customers, so you know great production teams that were producing high quality podcasts and it was really about getting into the nitty gritty of their workflows, understanding like where time Descript fit into their workflow. So if they were also using tools like Audition and Premiere and Pro Tools, it was like, ok, how can we onboard and make you successful with Descript at that time.

Fonz:

Excellent. Well, that's fantastic because, like I said, I'm thankful for you and your experience and obviously your passion that you have just because you know seeing you, you know with these events and having Dave on and just having wonderful speakers. And then I know you and I have been going back and forth, you know, as far as messaging. But I'm just really excited where Adobe podcast is going now because, like I mentioned, I can't stop talking enough about it because of my experience with it and also because I've had the opportunity, working at a district as a digital learning coordinator, I get the opportunity to work with educators and they go into teacher classrooms and maybe they have a project and they just want to do something a little bit different. Or, you know, in this case, I'll go into libraries and I'll give them an idea of how they can go ahead and leverage the power of podcast for, you know, doing their book reviews and little things, or little mini pods, micro pods for you know, just giving reviews on books, main characters, little things like that, just so you know it builds up just that community. And also for the students to be able to just have that ownership and feel like they're part of something bigger. And what I see here is, as you bring your experience in with the rest of the team, I think that this is going to be something that's going to be fantastic and I look forward to all the great things that are coming.

Fonz:

So, with your background in education, and then, of course, going into the market, as far as Descript working with enterprise customers, what do you find is, you know, maybe a couple of the biggest barriers of entry that maybe some people that may be interested because, as our audience here, we have a lot of educators that maybe are interested in starting a podcast, but they don't know where to start and you know how to get started. So, with your experience, what would be some actionable where to start? And you know how to get started? So, with your experience, what would be some actionable steps for them to say, hey, let's, this is a way that we can remove that barrier and that you can just click, record and start producing something.

Harmony Jiroudek:

Yeah, I think like, first off, there's a lot of fear or apprehension to even just like push the record button right, like so, um. So I think you know, on one hand, there's a lot of like kind of pre-production stuff you can get out of the way, like while you're getting over that fear of hitting the you know red record button. So it's like you know, planning, doing research on the, on the people that you're interviewing, like figuring out who your audience is and coming up with some personas and figuring out, like you know, talking to people, like is this even something that is going to be worthwhile? Like getting you know diving into and um, and then I think, like also the tech it can just like it can bog people down. I think we're at this point now you know it's 2025 the market's pretty saturated with different tools out there, like if you search for transcription tools, like there's just so many things out there, and so I think one is just like give yourself time to try out different tools.

Harmony Jiroudek:

I don't think there's like a one size fits all right, like it's, you know, use the tool that's going to be most conducive to the way that works well based on your workflow and also just allows you to be able to get into interesting conversations and not get bogged down by the technology and be able to focus on the story.

Harmony Jiroudek:

So I would say test out different software, see what works best for you after doing that bit of research. And I would also say, like, record yourself and probably throw away the first things that you record. You know you may come back, you know and listen to something and see or hear it with a different lens and be like, oh yeah, like I'm really glad I, you know, did a couple practice rounds. Now I'm going to come back at it a little bit more informed, based on what I heard the first time around and maybe it was just like the filler words. It was like, oh man, I said, and like so many times. So I'm going to, I got those few practice episodes under my belt. I'm going to come back even more prepared.

Fonz:

Excellent and that is fantastic advice. And you know, if I could go back and start things all over again, I would probably have started there. But you know, I'll be honest with you, like when I was in the classroom this was maybe about 10 years ago going to a conference, and so I would just start recording in the classroom with my students and so we would do a lesson, and what I would do is I would walk around just with my phone and I'd record all my students and what I would do is we would have an activity where we were going over. Let's say it was either, you know just, I don't know the Revolutionary War, or the Roaring 20s was, you know, an era that was a lot of fun and the students always had a great time. So it was great that what I would do is I would assign certain sections of those readings to students. So if I had 25 kids, then I would assign certain sections to them, and then everybody was a subject matter expert. So I would just say, all right, at this time, dr Garcia, our guest here, who's joining us from the University of so-and-so, just make it up. And then, of course, they'd speak their part, and then I would put all that together and share it with parents through our digital newsletter.

Fonz:

It was something that was fantastic that I never thought at that time that I was or we were doing a podcast. It was just to me it was something like, oh, we're just having some fun and enjoying. But now I mean, this is where a lot of classrooms currently want to go or are in or they hope to get into. So I really appreciate the advice that you gave for individuals, but also for students, for teachers and students also to have, just to make sure that we don't get bogged down with a lot of the tech. And so one of the things that I love, like I mentioned, is the ease of use of Adobe podcast, because my philosophy I always tell people and those that know me I always say, hey, I just got to keep it KISS, keep it simple and streamlined. Ok, other people put another S in there, a different type of S, but I just say, if you keep it simple and streamlined, you're going to be good to go, and I can't think of a better platform than Adobe Podcast. So, going back to the platform and what it's able to do, I just find it fascinating, like I said, as the ease of use of being able to go in there and just click that record button and really go in and talk, and that transcript is huge. It's a huge help because there are many, like you mentioned, platforms that are out there that still use, you know, the audio wave files, and then having to go in there and cut and listen and cut and so on. But here I mean you've got a nice transcript that's similar to a Word doc or a Google doc and highlight, delete and boom, you just continue going on. I mean that is something that is fantastic.

Fonz:

What has been some of the feedback that you get from this? Because I know, like you mentioned, it's all about that time and efficiency. So what are some of the feedback that you get from this? Because I know, like you mentioned, it's all about that time and efficiency. So what are some of the things that you hear on your side?

Harmony Jiroudek:

Yeah, yeah, no, I think like there's two main things I hear. One is just because you know again, we're not the only text-based editor in the game now. So I think like the main thing is that the simplicity of it. You know, like you literally open up a project, there's a couple buttons on the left, there's a record button, there's an invite guest button and that's it. So once you get your transcript back, you're really just focused on that transcript editing experience. So just the simplicity and ease of use, I think really comes into play.

Harmony Jiroudek:

The other thing too, like especially, I think, like thinking about, you know, the student experience.

Harmony Jiroudek:

There's so many sort of use cases for using it in the classroom, whether it's like to your point, using it on a like a culmination project or a book review, or even language learning, like you know, be able to see, like even language learning, like you know, be able to see like students light up, like when they hear their voice, you know like recorded back and then they, then they you know there's room for you know that self assessment and making improvements from there.

Harmony Jiroudek:

So like I just I love seeing like students and faculty like light up when they realize like, oh, I can record and then get the transcript back. And just recently, as you and I were discussing earlier, you can now transcribe in six different languages, which I think is huge, especially for education. So I think like there's this element of like wider accessibility and option for inclusive learning. So, yeah, that paired with the ease of use, and then we'll get to this but also access to Adobe Express. So there's, when you sign up for Adobe Podcast or Adobe Express, you automatically get access to the other. So it's basically you've got your podcasting tool and your design and you know, video tool like wrapped up into like one subscription and to me, for like as a, you know, as- an educator.

Harmony Jiroudek:

It's like this is all you need. So, um, I think that would be the thing that like rounds out, like what's what makes it unique in the market?

Fonz:

yes, yes, yes to all of that because, like I said, it was funny, you know, also just coming back from TCEA and I was like, well, let me just sit here and I think this was February 7th actually, because I have my project dated right here so I came in here I was like, well, let me try it out, because of the presentation, I'll have an opportunity to go to Puerto Rico and share on this. And there it is, it's all in Spanish. And then not only that, but just I love, like you mentioned, the way that the UX for it is fairly simple. You can either upload your audio and you can fix that, you can add the music, you can add, you know, your intros, outros, mid sections.

Fonz:

But one of the things that I do love about this is the ability to have more than one student and in this case, the only reason that I'm saying students is because this is who I work with the most but to be able to have them podcast together and just, you know, even though they may not be like, let's say, in the same class, this could be a project that is worked on, you know, after school or things of that sort, where they have access to that I think that this is something that is fantastic, where they get to work on that and, like you mentioned, submit a. You know a culmination project. You know something describing their unit, or a novel that they're writing or, excuse me, a novel that they're reading?

Fonz:

and studying and just to be able to partner together and just show their knowledge. But they're working on proper language acquisition. And again, the only reason I'm bringing teacher talk here is because I want my teachers to understand that you know, in the speaking portion, their proper language. They get to also work on pronunciation, they get to edit, they get you know and build up those personal communication, collaboration skills also in one, and the critical thinking. But then you added that wonderful bonus that I tell my teachers it's like after that, I mean, you've got the creative component through Adobe Express 2 as well. So that's something that is fantastic all wrapped into one platform. I was like this is fantastic and wrapped into one platform. I was like this is fantastic and I'm absolutely loving it. That's for sure.

Fonz:

So so, harmony, let me get a little bit more just from you as far as a couple of things that I do know. That I did notice. That I absolutely love too is as far as downloads. I know when I was at TCA you know teachers were like, well, how does this file download? Because some of them may want to just bring in a section of video to fix the audio. So I love the download portion menu because it's very simple. You can either download as an audio MP3, you can download the transcript as a TXT file. You can also do audiograms, which I thought was something fantastic that I stumbled upon too as well. So tell us a little bit about some of those features as far as the download side of it.

Harmony Jiroudek:

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's kind of like the, you know, the last piece in the workflow of like, okay, I've recorded, I've edited, I've gotten it perfect, I've maybe enhanced and added my video. So now how do I get it out and share it with, either with my classroom or share it with the world? And the goal at that point is really just like, let's present you with a bunch of different options Because, like for me, I can't really, like I need, if I'm watching a video or just listening to a podcast, like I need the transcript as well, um for it to be more, you know, more sticky, um. And so you can, yeah, download the final edited audio in a wave or mp3 form. Then, below that, you've got your transcript that you can download in a couple different formats. We do like txt, docx and pdf, um, all kind of good for different, various use cases.

Harmony Jiroudek:

With the premium plan, you can download your original recordings. So if, for example, if we were recording in there, it would record us on separate tracks so I could pull those down. And then, last but not least, audiograms. You know, I think particularly in podcasting, for folks that are doing audio only content, this gives you a really kind of easy way of converting your audio into engaging video really quickly. So what you're seeing in the platform right now is kind of like V1. It was kind of like you know. Here's what the initial iteration of this looks like. But, as you know, you know you want to be able to like change the background color.

Harmony Jiroudek:

You want to add your logo and your branding. You might want to add a picture of the person or a video of someone that you're interviewing, so that's like basically like what's to come next. But yeah, we needed to get that MVP out.

Fonz:

Yes, no, but that's so exciting and, if you don't mind, what I'm going to do here is I'm going to go ahead and just do a quick share screen and then what I'm going to do is I'm just going to demo the audiogram that I created, and, of course, this is going to be in Spanish. Like I mentioned, when I came back from TCA I was like all right, I'm so excited I get to present this in Puerto Rico and I have to do my presentation in Spanish. But oh no, I noticed that it said, hey, it does not transcribe in other languages other than English. Still, but now this is what I love. And so check out this great audiogram that I was creating. And thank you, harmony and the rest of the team, because, like you said, I know that this is going to change later on, you know, but first you got to take those baby steps. But this is huge, so let me share with you all what you can do. Hola, mis amigos, estoy muy contento de estar aquí con ustedes para presentar sobre podcasting en la aula. So, again, that's just a quick little demo again of what you are able to do through Adobe Podcast.

Fonz:

And this is really exciting because, again, you know, living in this time where you know it's content creation, content creation and even as educators, I know many times we feel and I know I feel many times that our students have become consumers in the classroom of content. But now this is a great opportunity to allow them to be those content creators where they're creating something that essentially didn't exist. They're bringing it to life by clicking that wonderful little record button and that's something that is fantastic where they can also see their transcript and I'll bring this in here also as well Like we were talking about the transcript portion right here, like we were talking about the transcript portion right here, and so this is just a quick little recording that I did, but I just wanted to share with you. And what Harmony and myself have been talking about is just the ease of use, where now I can go ahead and just take this whole section here, click delete and I have just cleaned up my transcript. If I want to bring it back, I'll just do Control-Z and then do some other edits, but this is something that is great.

Fonz:

That has definitely lowered the barrier to entry for our educators, for our students and especially for school districts. That are one-to-one Chromebooks, even on a Chromebook. One thing that I have done and shared is you can always have two students pair up with one Chromebook and they can still record the podcast together and they can still do some podcast together and they can still do some of those edits. Or you can just the teacher can go ahead and buy a nice USB mic or, through the district, and plug in a nice USB mic. That's very inexpensive and then the students can go ahead and share the mic as they're speaking their parts, because now that barrier of entry is no longer there, you don't have to be bogged down with.

Fonz:

Well, no, I need a, I need a Rodecaster Pro. Nothing wrong with having that, but the expense that it has, and then also to just be able to record four students at a time, because you're not going to have, you know, a Rodecaster Pro for every set of students, which would be great if you did. But this is a great way where you don't have to spend a lot of money and you're still going to get some great quality outputs too as well, and this is really exciting. So, harmony, you know we talked a little bit about this. So what's on the roadmap? I mean the things that you might be able to disclose. I mean, I would assume that, like you talked about, there would be those options on the audiograms to be able to, like you mentioned, change the color, put in some graphics and tie it in. More to that, either Adobe Express, or is it something that will be here within or built in within Adobe podcast.

Harmony Jiroudek:

So, as I mentioned, we just added a multi-language transcription. Previously you could only do it in English, could only do it in English. We also just localized the platform in 10 different languages now. So what will be coming? It will be more language support. You know, hopefully we want to get another, you know, at least five to 10 languages added in the next few quarters. So just making it more accessible on that level. Another thing, one thing that we heard we were actually attended a podfest recently in Orlando. Everyone was like where's video? How can I record video? So right now, Adobe podcast in the studio feature is it's an audio only recording tool. So I would say it's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when we incorporate video in. So, just like we are here in StreamYard, be able to do that and then still have that clean, simple transcript interface to be able to edit and work from. I would say, yeah, the language piece and video are probably two of the larger core investments that we're going to be working on in the coming months.

Fonz:

That's fantastic. Well, I'm really excited because, like I said, for me, the simplicity of use and, most importantly, because, at least in my mind, as a teacher, like I said, as an educator, lifelong learner but in working with educators, I feel that this is probably one of the most complete platforms that is out there right now that has the ease of use with the transcript learner. But in working with educators, I feel that this is probably one of the most complete platforms that is out there right now that has the ease of use with the transcript. Like I mentioned to you, I saw some demos with other platforms that do the transcript and it was not very user friendly, as this is where you have everything just on one screen you highlight, backspace, delete and you're ready to go and you really don't waste any time. You've got your built-in sounds, you've got, you know, your wonderful filters too, like I mentioned, where you can either strengthen the clean voice and remove some of that background and clean things up, or just, you know, tweak it just enough, where you can have that little ambient sound and just bring in that authentic audio. It's up to you.

Fonz:

But, like I said, the ease of use, being able to invite guests, podcast together and then, of course, now with the excitement of you know, later on like you said, it's not too far ahead, but I know pretty soon that you know being able to incorporate audio, I mean, excuse me, the video portion of that.

Fonz:

That would be something that would be fantastic, because now what I'm seeing is the amazing value of all students in an Adobe district that have access to Adobe Express to be able to take that creativity to that different level and be able to speak their learning, share their learning in a wide variety of ways where they'll be able to speak it, do some design work behind it and just really have a complete finished product that looks fantastic and, of course, that's something that really excites me and it's really going to engage the students as well, rather than, you know, the typical worksheet or digital worksheet even you know, because many times, as educators, we just take the same worksheet but we just digitize it and say, okay, we're using tech, but in reality you're just substituting and doing the exact same thing, but here, oh my gosh, you've definitely opened up just so many more ways that the students can show their learning and their mastery of the content.

Fonz:

So this is exciting Harmony. I appreciate what you and the rest of the team are doing and thank you so much for the wonderful shares as far as what will be coming down the pipeline, and that is very exciting for sure.

Harmony Jiroudek:

Absolutely, you know. You actually made me think of one more thing, and that's hitting on our enhanced speech tool. So we recently released V2. And, based on some feedback that we were hearing, there was kind of a need to have like a little bit more control over how much background noise you want to bring in versus how much you enhance the voice. So we're going to be making some improvements to the slider experience. So instead of one single slider we're going to add a second one, just so that you have a little bit more mixing control. So that actually thinking of, like you know, sounds in the classroom, maybe you want to hear some of the background voices of, like maybe the teacher's lecturing, but you want to hear a little bit of the excitement that's going on in the classroom, so you can have a little bit more control over that.

Fonz:

Perfect, and so I'm going to go ahead and just share my screen here one more time. And this is what we're talking about, because currently you have the enhanced speech right here and you can either turn that off or turn that on, and I know you've got the slider option here where you can go full 100 percent or just kind of tweak it and just really catch that extra little ambiance and background. Just, you know, have it maybe just a nice little subtle touch there in the background, but, like I said, it's just the ease of use. For me is really what the game changer is is that, you know, for teachers to not feel very overwhelmed, the UX UI for teachers, the UX UI for teachers, the UX UI for students, and like, when I went to the particular school that I was working with, I was working with fourth graders and then I was working with sixth graders and they were just very excited at how easy it was to just record record together and how easy it was for them to edit, and so, like I mentioned, this is something that even the students really enjoyed and gave me some great feedback, and, of course, the librarian and the teachers that I work with also gave great feedback with this and you know about the platform because you know it just makes that less, I guess, nerve wracking that as a teacher, you feel like, oh my gosh, I've got to learn this whole other platform and I got to learn all of this. It's like no, the kids can become those podcast subject matter experts right away and help each other immediately because of the UX and the UI. Absolutely, yeah, excellent. Well, harmony, thank you so much. I really appreciate you spending a little bit of time with me here and I don't know, I know, in this episode, guys, I know you guys are listening and you're probably like, oh my gosh, fonz really sounds really excited about this. And yes, I am. I am really excited about this and I'm really excited about all the great things that Harmony shared too as well, because, guys, I definitely you know, maybe this is one of the most either just I don't know maybe underutilized tools that we have. If you're in Adobe District, make sure that you check out podcastadobecom because you'll have access to it, get on it, share it with your teachers, show them just a little bit of basics and watch them, and the students take off with it, because this is a wonderful platform to help them continue to grow and engage in the learning as well One of the things, too, that Harmony mentioned.

Fonz:

You know, in having the transcripts and having students be able to hear their voices For all of you, we know that it's TELPIS season, where the students have to work on their speaking skills. So just to be able to have a platform where they can easily click, record, read something, give you some feedback and they can listen to it, and you can listen to it. Now you have a digital artifact that you can save and you can show progress and growth from the beginning of the year to the end of the year as far as language is concerned. And so think about those things, teachers. This is wonderful. It doesn't always I know that I'm kind of putting that in there, but also it's just the fun that goes with it, too, as well. So, thank you, thank you, adobe Podcast, thank you, harmony, for being here and sharing all the wonderful love and the goods that Adobe's bringing. So, guys, be on the lookout for that, but for right now, make sure you log on and try it out. All right, harmony?

Fonz:

So before we wrap up, as you know, here on the show, we always love to end our episodes with these last three questions. So hopefully you are ready to go. All right, let's go. Here we go. So question number one All right, we know that every superhero has a pain point and for Superman, that kryptonite weakened him, or it just caused, you know, just some weakness in him, and it was just that, like I mentioned, a pain point. I know I'm sounding very repetitive, but I want to ask you, in the current state of education, what would you say, is your current edu kryptonite?

Harmony Jiroudek:

What would you say, is your current edu kryptonite? It's a good question. Well, I have two, if that's OK. Is that all right?

Fonz:

Absolutely, the more the merrier OK awesome.

Harmony Jiroudek:

Well, I think one is just sort of this theme around access to AI tools for instructors in general and providing adequate training and even professional development opportunities to teachers so that they can really like effectively determine what AI tools are going to enhance their classroom.

Harmony Jiroudek:

Obviously, like there's so many tools out there, and so I think, without that, like a lot of educators you know they're going to struggle to integrate ai into their classroom or even just be able to talk about ai from an informed point of view, so that they you know they can be in, you know getting their students prepared for the future, to you know what's to come. And then I think, like the thing that piggybacks on that is like having ai policies and best practices in place so that you know, like when parents you need to make an informed decision about where to send their kids, like there's, you know there's rigor around that. There's like there's been a rigorous process in place that informed, like this is. You know, these are the tools that we allow, that we have incorporated, and then maybe we're also piloting some stuff, but there's like process around that. So that's my take on that.

Fonz:

I think that's fantastic and I think that a lot of school districts now I know it's been what it'll be two years plus since you know Chad, gpt and of course still there are school districts that don't have a policy yet and aren't quite sure because it's just so much information out there. But I think I absolutely love and agree with what you said especially is informing parents to allow them to make those informed decisions too as well, and seeing like is this something that is going to be useful for my child or not? Is the district making sure that they're taking matters into, you know, any matters that may pop up, if they're ready to go and mitigate anything that may happen, and because the last thing we want is we don't want our students to get hurt, you know, by something that a chatbot replies, or obviously also the fear of data and data breaches and things of that sort. So I agree with you 100%, all right. Question number two, harmony, is if you could have a billboard with anything on it, what would it be and why?

Harmony Jiroudek:

It's a good one, because there's like so much that you, you know, that comes to mind. But you know, know, I think something to the extent of like, stay true to yourself and keep learning. You know, like I think, but, you know, been in the industry for a while now and I think, like life is just too short to not be yourself and not be authentic. Like I've spent a lot of time like being a people pleaser, you know, know, which I think I am still to an extent, but you just have to let others see the real. You, you know, and I think, like that's one of the things that I just really love about being behind a product like Adobe podcast is like we're trying to empower people through the use of innovative technology while keeping it as simple as possible so that people can focus on their craft and story.

Fonz:

I love it, I love it and I think like too, like you mentioned, authenticity is.

Fonz:

This is a great tool for students really to also just be very authentic and, you know, not just see this like also, like, hey, like I'm just creating an assignment and things of that sort, but also to be able to just bring a little bit of themselves into this particular project and, just you know, work on their true, authentic voice and hear that out at such a young age, and I think that's something that is important too as well. So I really love that that you said. And, just again, authenticity definitely goes a long way. All right, the last thing harmony. Last question is if you could trade places with one person for a single day, who would it be and why?

Harmony Jiroudek:

so good like they're. My artist side of me was like I'd want to go be like a famous, like singer, for a day. So like I thought of like whitney, chaka Khan, you know, just like after you know, a day in the life of like one of those amazing concerts, right? But more on a personal, like on a more family kind of side note, I would say Eliza Spalding, and she is my great, great, great great grandmother. She was one of the first women to cross the Oregon Trail with Narcissa Whitman. She was a Presbyterian missionary that immigrated from the West Coast to the West Coast Sorry, east Coast to the West Coast and she just has an incredible story, like you know, living in the 1800s and traveling across the states, and you know there was my dad actually recently wrote a book about her life and story and working with the Nez Perce community, and it was just just a really beautiful story. So I'm just like, oh, what would a day in the life of Eliza, what would that have been like? So that's that's been top of mind lately.

Fonz:

Yeah, that's fantastic. Actually I if you see me looking over yours because I did a quick Google search and just you know being able to see what popped up I was like, oh my goodness, this is amazing. And so this is great, this is fantastic. So now I'm going to definitely look up a little bit more information.

Fonz:

But, harmony, just thank you so much, just for your shares, thank you so much, just for you know what you're doing. I can't speak enough. I guess it's just the podcaster in me really wanting to help students and teachers do the same, but in and tying in that that education aspect you know the lessons and so on and how it could also turn into a podcast and how this could be a way to also assess learning in a different way. And so I just want to say thank you for your time, thank you for your effort and for all our audience members also. Thank you so much, and for our amazing sponsors, EduA say thank you for your time, thank you for your effort and for all our audience members also. Thank you so much and for our amazing sponsors. Edua, thank you so much for believing in what we do. And Yellowdig, we really appreciate you and everything that you're doing for us in bringing these great conversations to all of our amazing audience members, audience members.

Fonz:

And again, don't forget, make sure you jump over to our website at myedtechlife, where you can check out this amazing episode and the other 310 wonderful episodes where, I guarantee you, you will find a little something that you can sprinkle on to what you are already doing great. If you haven't done so yet, jump over to our YouTube channel. Give us a thumbs up, please subscribe. We are approximately 38 subscribers away from 1,000 subscribers, and that is our mission, guys. Help us get to 1,000. So please make sure you jump on over and keep on following us on all socials. Thank you so much for all of that support and until next time, my friends, don't forget, as always, stay techie you.