Weldwood Studios · On Air · Lebanon, Oregon
In six weeks, your kid publishes a real podcast.
Podcasting is a monster. We’ll help them slay it.
Thursdays 2:30-4pm
Starting Sept. 24!
Taught by Jake Zufelt of Weldwood marketing
at Weldwood Studios in Lebanon, Oregon
Start here
Your kid already has opinions.
Strong ones, at volume, usually at dinner.
This class turns that into something they can point at.
Not a project about podcasting. An actual episode, live on Spotify, with their name on it. Three weeks learning the craft, three weeks in the studio making it. They design a show, run broadcast equipment, record, cut it down, and publish it where anyone in the world can hear it. They finish with a link. They will send you the link. You will listen to it more than once.
No experience needed. No gear to buy. They just have to show up and start.
The part parents actually care about
The skills outlast the podcast.
Most of these students will not become podcasters, and that is fine. What they take with them is the ability to talk to a stranger on purpose, ask a question and then actually listen to the answer, and finish something on a deadline when nobody is standing over them.
Those are hard to teach in a classroom and impossible to fake. Six weeks of doing it in front of a microphone works better than six years of being told to.
Who is teaching your kid
Somebody who does this for a living.
Jake Zufelt runs Weldwood Studios, a working podcast and video studio in Lebanon, Oregon. He hosts the Irreverent Business Podcast solo, writing, recording, and producing every episode. He wrote the international bestseller Digital Marketing Sucks and is a StoryBrand certified practitioner.
Most podcast studios stop at record. Not us. The studio runs three separate sound treated rooms, each with its own full setup, so students are never waiting for a turn and no two sessions bleed into each other. They learn on Sennheiser, Focusrite, Canon and Aputure gear. The same equipment paying clients book.
The six weeks
Learn it. Then go make it.
Weeks 1 to 3 · Learn the craft
01 · Design your show
Every show is either teaching or interviewing, and picking wrong is why most podcasts die at episode four. Students choose their format, define who it is for, and build an episode plan. Then the real skill: writing questions worth asking, and learning to abandon them when the answer goes somewhere better.
02 · Learn the gear
Hardware first. Microphones, interfaces, lighting, and the shocking difference three inches of mic placement makes. They hear the same sentence recorded well and recorded badly, back to back, and they never forget it. Then the software side, and how to make a bedroom sound decent, since that is where most of them will record next.
03 · Edit and launch
The whole class edits the same messy raw recording, so nobody is defending their own audio and everybody can compare choices. Structure first, then cleanup, then music. We finish with the launch side: cover art, show notes, hosting, and getting a feed onto Spotify and Apple.
Weeks 4 to 6 · In the studio · Everything above, put into practice
04 · Studio: first take
All three rooms running. Every student records their episode, hosting their own and sitting in as guest on somebody else’s. Students not in the chair work as engineer and producer, because running the board for a classmate teaches more than watching yourself. First takes are rough. That is the point.
05 · Studio: listen back
The week the work gets good. Students cut their own audio with Jake in the room, and rooms stay open for pickups. Almost everyone rerecords their intro once they have heard it, which is the single most valuable thing that happens in this class. Revision is the part a one day workshop can never teach.
06 · Studio: final cut and launch
Last pickups, final edits, and then everybody publishes. Titles, descriptions, artwork, submitted to the directories. We end by sitting down together and listening to what the whole class made.
The episode belongs to them. Hosting is covered for three months, and if they catch the bug they take the whole feed with them at no cost. Some of them will keep going.
Questions we get
Straight answers.
What does my student need to bring?
A computer and headphones for work between sessions. That is the entire supply list. We provide the rooms, the microphones, and the software.
What if my kid is shy?
Good. Quiet students often do the best work here, because the microphone gives them a reason to talk and a structure to do it in. Nobody is made to perform. A well researched interviewer beats a loud one every time.
Is this a real class or an activity?
Both, and that is on purpose. It runs like a class: six lessons in order, each with its own objective. It counts like an extracurricular activity, and families are welcome to list it as one.
What it is not is graded. No marks, no rubric, no report card. Every lesson has a desired outcome instead, something the student walks out holding. A show on paper. A clean recording. An edited episode. A live link.
At the end they have a published episode with their name on it. On a transcript or in a portfolio, that link says more than a letter grade ever would.
What if they miss a week?
The three studio weeks are built with slack. A student who misses their first take records in week five and still finishes on time.
Finishing means one episode recorded, edited, and live on a real feed. That is the floor, not the ceiling. Students who move faster use the spare studio time to make more, and some leave with a handful of episodes instead of one.
$250
Per student · Full six week course · Thursdays 2:30-4pm
Covers all six sessions, studio and equipment use, editing software, and three months of hosting. Eight student minimum, capped at ten. Ask about using your student learning funds.