podcasting

Pod casts. I found this in my documents. I am not sure where I got it from or if I wrote it myself, for last years Elearning. If it is copied or paraphrased, I will find out and attribute it. This also links to some content we looked at the other day rregarding sharing, copying and attribution.

Hello class, I think this might answer the question, why I borrowed your MP3 players the other day. It was to download a podcast, which is what you're listening to now. What's a podcast? Teachers are using podcasts to connect their students to listeners local and long-distance to give projects a real-world context and audience, and to boost technological skills and independence.

By S.E. Kramer | August 2009
The best part? Creating and publishing podcasts is a relative cinch. Podcasts are downloadable audio files. Listeners can download podcasts, and also subscribe to them using an RSS feed.
In all their forms, podcasts have become a popular classroom activity during the past five years—iTunes is now populated with streams from hundreds of K–12 schools across the country. Some student podcasts are simply recorded versions of history or book reports. But today, podcasts coming from the classroom are frequently much more creative and ambitious team efforts.
Students do all the work of creating the podcasts.
The fourth- and fifth-grade podcasts have hosts, and include “interviews” with historical figures like Christopher Columbus and Albert Einstein. And even the first graders make their own podcasts.

1. INVEST IN DECENT COMPUTER MICROPHONES. Most computers have built-in mics, but ambient classroom noise can make these difficult to use and result in poor sound quality. Fortunately, headsets with microphones can cost as little as $6 online.

2. CHOOSE GOOD SOFTWARE. Apple computers come with GarageBand software, which is great for recording and editing podcasts. Windows Vista computers come with Sound Recorder software for recording and Windows Movie Maker for editing. Another option for Windows users is to download free audio-editing software like Audacity.

3. DON’T FORGET THE MUSIC. Like most radio programs, podcasts often start with music or a theme song. Some students may record original music for their podcasts, but royalty-free or Creative Commons licensed music is easy to find online. Search for it on GarageBand.com (no relation to Apple’s GarageBand software) and PodSafeAudio.com.

4. TAKE AN EDITING TUTORIAL. The Web is full of podcast-editing tutorials—some are even in podcast form. A search for “podcasting in the classroom” or “podcasting for teachers” on iTunes reveals several good audio and video podcasts. Check out the illustrated video series Podcasting, from Learning and Teaching Scotland. Classroom 2.0 and Education.Ning.com are great places to connect with other teachers about podcasting strategies.

5. FIND YOUR PODCASTS A HOST. Once your students have put together their perfect audio files, where should you post them? In many ways, this is actually the hardest aspect of podcasting. Audio downloads take up bandwidth, and bandwidth costs money.

Some teachers find that getting podcasts onto official school websites is too complicated, technically difficult, or expensive. In that case, you can use free podcast-hosting websites. Podomatic.com’s free account gives you 500 MB of storage and 15 GB per month of bandwidth, while PodBean.com’s free hosting allows 100 MB of storage and 5 GB of bandwidth monthly. These amounts of storage and bandwidth will be more than enough for most classroom podcasts: If you post two podcasts a month at 10 MB each (about 10 minutes long), 5 GB of bandwidth would allow each to be downloaded 250 times in a month.

Once your podcast has a host, syndicating it on directories is free and easy. Simply enter the feed’s web address into the directory (for example, on iTunes, the Submit a Podcast link asks for a URL) and the systems will take care of the details.

6. GET NOTICED! You’ll want students and parents to be able to find your class’s podcast easily. The best way to do that (besides sending a mass e-mail) is to make sure the podcast file has strong metadata. Metadata is information that doesn’t appear in the podcast’s title or in its content, but is attached to the MP3 file and allows people to find the podcast using search directories.

The passage above came from http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3752278 . I found it very useful regarding podcasting.