Educators learn skills to streamline storytelling in the AI era at SRL’s 2025 Teacher Workshop
Date: August 8, 2025
By: Anthony Payne
PBS News Student Reporting Labs just wrapped the 2025 Teacher Workshop, hosted in Washington, DC. From July 25-27, 47 teachers from all over came to the WETA offices to streamline storytelling by exploring production strategies to maximize classroom resources and produce compelling narratives. The Teacher Workshop invited teachers from all media experience levels to learn and share their skills.
“I didn’t have any previous experience,” said Vilma Orduna, a physics teacher at Porter High School in Brownsville, TX. “But the whole team created a safe learning environment where I was not afraid to ask questions and participate actively.”
The SRL Teacher Workshop offers a chance for educators to connect with peers, swap strategies, and talk candidly about classroom wins and challenges. Many teachers are the sole journalism educators at their schools. This weekend gave them a rare opportunity to build an in-person support network, exchange ideas, and reflect honestly on both classroom wins and challenges.
The weekend opened with an introduction from the SRL staff on StoryMaker and gave attendees their first look at ways to get involved with SRL this year.
SRL staff and returning educators hosted practical breakout sessions on video production and editing, mobile journalism, lighting, scripting, and interviewing – the works! Every part of the production process was broken down, equipping teachers with the tools, experience, and confidence to do this work with their students.
Because practice makes progress, the teachers applied what they learned by filming and editing a series of Rapid Response videos about the impact of policy on school environments, and role of technology in the classroom. How have things changed as a result of policy decisions, and how has the encroachment of technology on students’ lives affected their role in the classroom? Teachers worked in groups with mixed experience levels to reflect real classroom dynamics.
“The mobile journalism and scripting/transcribing workshops will be immediately helpful to my teaching this year,” reflects Kimberley Thompson, a teacher at South Shore Charter Public School in Norwell, Massachusetts. “The small group project felt like an essential opportunity for putting everything together. It gave me a real sense of how a shoot might look when my kids have better software and equipment!”
Later in the weekend, teachers explored audio production and podcasting, culminating in a live recording of Teacher Reporting Labs, SRL’s podcast by teachers, for teachers.
AI isn’t going anywhere, and from student accommodations to admin influence, there’s a lot that teachers will have to adjust to in the age of ChatGPT. 
In this episode of TRL (available here soon), educators offered a lot of interesting insights about what AI might mean for the future of classrooms and critical thinking, good and bad.
“If the expectation I have of my students is robotic, then I’m the one that’s taking the humanity out of my classroom, not AI,” offered Monique Harris, a teacher at Lexington High School in Massachusetts. “I think that AI can hopefully allow teachers to start really thinking, if my assignment can be so easily done with AI, how worthy is it to teach? How and what do I need to change so that I’m actually providing the space for them to learn, rather than doing something that a machine can do?”
Outside the breakouts and recording sessions, there were some great in-between moments too. Teachers connected over meals and explored some of DC’s monuments and museums.
“Everything from impromptu editing brainstorms over coffee, to evening dinner chats that turned into deeper convos about how to keep students engaged,” said Emily Hope Dobkin, SRL Senior Manager of Community Engagement. “It wasn’t just about learning new tools; it was about feeling re-energized and less alone in the work.”
Teachers are always and increasingly pressed to adapt to new challenges and find creative solutions to meet their needs as they grow in real time. The SRL team is proud to offer an expenses-paid experience for educators to find community and return to their classrooms with new and refined tools to support the next generation of storytellers. We’re grateful for another successful Teacher Workshop, to all the teachers who made it happen, and all the educators making it happen in their classrooms this fall.
This level of free hands-on media education is made possible by support for public media programs like PBS News Student Reporting Labs and local station WETA. Consider becoming a member of your local station, and donating today to SRL. More on SRL’s place in the public media ecosystem here.
Interested in getting involved with SRL and joining a national network of journalism educators? Explore our 2025-26 guide to working with SRL and attend our back to school virtual event series.