Podcasting

Worldbridges would like to do everything possible to support educational podcasting. To that end, we are providing teachers with as many tools as possible to support their podcasting/webcasting efforts. To begin with, here is an overview of what you need in order to podcast

Podcasting Outline

A Podcasting Guide

Prepared by: Alex Ragone: Director of Technology, Collegiate School

Arvin Grover: Director of Technology, The Hewitt School

Process:

  1. Download Audacity for Mac or PC: (current version) from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
  2. Download Lame (current version) from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&item=lame-mp3
  3. Change preferences for library in Audacity to use Lame file in order to export as MP3 in Preferences -> File Formats.
  4. Change Bit Rate to 64.

Record:

  1. use a USB microphone:
    1. bluemike.com (Snowball – USB mike)
      1. use setting #3 for group recording;
      2. #2 for amplified music;
      3. use setting #1 for individual

  2. Record Select all Amplify so between 0.5 and -0.5 Editing Screencasts: http://webcastacademy.net/audio-editing and http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/17-audacity-tutorial.htm If you have a subscription, there are great audacity tutorials at Atomic Learning: http://www.atomiclearning.com/audacity_mac and http://www.atomiclearning.com/audacity_pc Export as an .mp3 file Learning tool because you can listen to yourself. Can add tracks If speaking, just need to record in mono Export collapses all tracks to an .mp3 file. * In Audacity: File -> Export as MP3 * Have naming scheme file. Tag File * For PC: ID3 TagIt to tag files with name, info, album art. Shows up in iPod. * For Mac: ID File: o iTunes is good now that they have spruced up the id3 tag editing capabilites.. check it out and let me know if you agree...if not, I have other suggestions...Basic stuff (Track Name, Artist etc) can be entered right in the library list or select a song or songs and hit Apple+I for extended info, including multiple cover images. o Apple Info: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25293 o Some editors: http://www.mp3machine.com/mac/ID3-TAG/ and http://addcast.net/wordpress/?page_id=39 Publishing: Make part of a blog post with an RSS feed. iTunes will read automatically We used: Education Bridges.net Elgg Podcasting: http://www.educationbridges.net/elgg/ Upload .mp3 here under Your Files Create a new blog post in Your Blog. From the bottom of the post, select the file to be inserted under: Embed a file from your Educationbridges Elgg file storage: This will put the tags into the post and create a flash mp3 player in your post. Example: http://elgg.educationbridges.net/alex/weblog/1704.html Other Publishing Options: * You need a blog to publish your work and make it a Podcast. You need a service that will host the file as well. If you host your blog yourself, you can run Wordpress with a number of flash player plugins such as PodPress (http://www.mightyseek.com/podpress/) * See: http://codex.wordpress.org/Podcasting You can also find a number of pay to host services: * Dedicated Podcasting: http://www.libsyn.com/index.php?&mode=logout&message= and * Hosting Companies: http://www.hosting-review.com/?gclid=CJ6WrpC4no0CFQQ3OAodlS8-6w NPR Story on audio editing: * http://www.onthemedia.org/yore/transcripts/transcripts_123104_curtain.html Other Resources: * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting * http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com * Webcast Academy Book of Webcasting: http://www.webcastacademy.net/Book_of_Webcasting * Five Tips to Make Your Lame Podcast Listenable at: http://2007.sxsw.com/blogs/podcasts.php/2007/03/ Work Produced During Session: http://elgg.educationbridges.net/hchang/weblog http://elgg.educationbridges.net/gorio/weblog/ File: http://elgg.educationbridges.net/gorio/files/ http://elgg.educationbridges.net/jneiers/files/ http://elgg.educationbridges.net/lisap/files/ Roster: St. Bernard Susy Ogden: Marymount 4th -7th Alex Ragone: Professional growth – adult learner; Collegiate. Robin Newman: Jazz poetry video podcast Sharon Thompson: St. Luke’s School Dir. Of Tech. 8th grade yearbook? John Nyers – Tech Dir. Dalton School Use to get info out to 6th grade parents so don’t have to meet with them at night. Karen Bass: Dalton K-3 Younger children like to talk and hear themselves. Kids interviewed workers at museums. Took pictures and recorded interviews. Listen to interviews while looking at pictures. Erin Bumfield: Nightingale-Bamford. Recording in Lower School. Lot of resistance. Pat Hough – Columbia-Grammar Prep School Coordinator. Introduced Moodle for 4th grade. Too complicated for teachers. Podcasting might be interesting for 3rd graders. Started Scratch. Arvin Grover: Hewitt Schol – Professional development. Took 1 year to figure out what to do with students. Club for live webcasting. But kids just wanted to hear themselves talk about what they talk about anyway. Only works with kids or teachers who are interested in voice and speaking (foreign language teachers). George Orio - Friends – kids express selves through all sorts of media. Han-hua – Brooklyn Friends: any technology must follow grain of being of organization. Maintain relevance to digital revolution (McArthur Foundation). Seems like it might be useful for any of the oral arts, such as poetry. Linda Pedicini: Spence School: Interested in what it facilitates for students and teachers. Steve Nieman – Little Red School House I posted a poem and podcast at http://elgg.educationbridges.net/hchang/weblog

Hardware Requirements

* a Windows, Mac, or Linux computer with a soundcard * preferably an external microphone and listening device, like a headset with an attached microphone Hardware As long as you have a computer that is capable of recording sound, it shouldn't matter which operating system you use (Windows, Mac, or Linux). Only a basic microphone is required, but a more expensive microphone will probably produce better sound. It is important to use an external microphone however, because using the built in mic will usually result in a signficant amount of computer hum being recorded as well. It is also important to use a headset (not speakers) when recording so that no feedback from the speakers will be recorded. If you don't have a headset, at least make sure you speakers are turned off (or volume is turned all the way down) when recording. For basic podcasting, we suggest using a basic headset with attached microphone (US$10~$20). See Book of Internet Audio ~ Hardware for more information

Software Requirements

* an audio recording program

* a program to upload files to your web host (FTP or web based)

Software

The most important piece of software you will need is an audio recording program. There are a number of commercial programs available, but for most people the open source Audacity will suffice. It can be downloaded for free and works with Windows, Mac, or Linux. You will also need to download the

Lame mp3 encoder™ in order to export your audio files in mp3 format. For information about how to install and use Audacity, please watch the videos below

* Installing Audacity

* Using Audacity to record and edit your audio

Depending on your hosting provider includes a web based file upload component or not, you may also need a program that allows you to upload files from your computer to your host server. For Windows users, we recommend a free FTP program called FileZilla. It can be downloaded from the Filezilla Project homepage . For Mac users, we recommend the free FTP program called Cyberduck. It can be downloaded from the Apple website. Mac users can also apply for the free Educational version of Fetch. Linux users can use the open source FTP program called Downloader for X.

Web Hosting Requirements

* storage space for your audio files

* a place to host your site (the 'interface' that visitors will see)

* many hosting solutions will provide both of these

Hosting

Overview (Interface, Hosting space, & Bandwidth)

You will need to have a webpage somewhere on the internet through you can present links to your audio files, updates related to your podcast project, and any other information you'd like to share with visitors. You can create html files yourself or use some kind of blogging style program to partially automate the page creation process. The format and style of your webpage can be referred to as the site interface. You will also need online storage space for the audio files you have created. The recorded audio files will be between 10~40MB/hour of audio, depending on how they are recorded. The amount of space provided is referred to as 'hosting space'. Finally, you will need to make sure that your hosting solution includes enough bandwidth for people to access your site and audio files. Bandwidth is the total amount of data that flows from your site. For example, if 50 people access a 20MB file that would result in 1000MB or 1GB of data transfer or bandwidth usage.

Podcasting Guides & Info

Podcasting Guides & Info