Robert Heinrich

Podcasting – What is it?

How is Podcasting Relevant to Education?• Multimedia• 99% free• Can be listened to on many platforms:• desktop, laptop, handhelds, MP3 players, cell phones• Mobile• Low cost to broadcast = cheap• publishing platform and more content

Learn by Listening• Music• Lectures• Audio Textbook• Student Projects• Tours on Campus• Enhanced Podcasts

• Pictures• Lecture Notes• Speaker Notes

• Distributing Special Addresses

Opportunities for authentic student products

• Sound-seeing tours• Broadcast student audio plays• Interviews with content experts• Ongoing student produced “radio” talk shows about content learned

Podcasts are a new web resource to support life long learning. The WHAT, WHEN, and WHERE under your control.

Imagine if …

The process• Find a podcast of interest, add it to your subscription list in

iTunes on your CPU.• Each time you launch iTunes or plug in your iPod, the

most recent episodes will download into your personal library.

• Listen at your convenience from your CPU or portable MP3 player.

The re-birth of radio?

Actually, it is not just audio• Audio• Audio with images• Video• Photos• PDFs Photos

Video Audio & Slides

How to Listen• Students can access content directly from where the links

to the files are posted on the web

• Podcast Software (clients) let you subscribe to and manage podcasts.• http://www.podcastingnews.com/topics/Podcast_Software.html

Common Misconceptions• A podcast can only be listened to on an iPod• A podcast can only be listed to through iTunes• You need a MAC to create a Podcast

With iTunes, Students Have Many Advantages

• Create Playlists from Audio in library• Organize playlists in convenient folders• Setup Smart Playlists • Add Podcasts: Subsribe, Sync, and Go

Additional iTunes Advantages• Chapters• Bookmarking

• Pick up where you left off• Time Syncs with your iPod + iTunes• Adjust playback speed on iPod

• Faster, Normal, Slower

Speech to text?• Acrobat allows for text to speech• Podzinger

• Search engine for podcasts and video, is created through the use of speech recognition software. It allows searching either audio or video or both.

• Results are displayed with brief sections of the transcript, which can be played using the player displayed on the left of each entry or by clicking a word in the transcript.

Capturing Content• Digital Personal Audio Recorder• PC Software and Microphone• Integrated Smart Classroom Recording System

Software for publishing podcasts and editing Content• Audacity

• Cross Platform• Open Source - Free

• Adobe Audition• Windows Only• Expensive

• Garage Band (part of iLife Suite)• Only available for MAC OS

How to Post a Podcast

• Making it available via the Web• Posting your file(s) on a server with a publicly accessible URL.

• Post to a WebBlog• Create an RSS feed.

• To accomplish this, you must post your MP3 file in a web folder on a web server. Then create the feed. FeedBurner is one free tool you can use.

• Making it available via iTunes• Submitting the URL for your RSS feed to iTunes

Posting to a Blog

• Your podcast is basically just a blog with audio. Podcasting uses the same feed technology as many blogs. Your audience receives the audio file through the feed in addition to the text.

• Usually each blog entry/post is one episode of your podcast. The post consists of your show notes (an outline of the episode’s contents), links to any related information or sources and probably a link to the MP3 file for the episode. The feed from your blog tells the subscriber’s podcatcher where to download the audio file.

RSS• One of the great things about listening to podcasts is

that you can subscribe to what’s called an RSS feed. Once you’re subscribed, your podcatcher will check the feed regularly for new episodes. When a new episode is posted, the podcatcher will automatically download the audio file for you to listen to.

• An RSS feed is nothing more than a specially formatted text file. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.

• You don’t need to worry about understanding RSS or writing out the feed file by hand. There are ways to create it automatically.

Creating Podcasts

• Preproduction - audience, research, script, music and sounds, practice

• Recording - microphone, audio software• Postproduction - editing• Publishing

Preproduction

• Purpose of the show• Identify your audience• Live or mixed?• Format

– Journal - more conversational– Audio essay or commentary– Discussion– Sound seeing tours– Other - music, plays, interviews, reviews

Preproduction

• Brainstorm or outline episode content• Create timeline or storyboard• Write script

0 Min 10 Min

Segments

Transition Music

Theme Music Theme Music

Preproduction

• Research topic• Gather audio resources - music,

stingers, sound effects, etc• Finalize script• Rehearse• Locate quiet area for recording

Recording

“Quiet on the set!”

• Record voice audio from script• Options for recording

– Internal or external microphone– Headset with microphone– Portable recording devices– Cell phone - Gcast– Skypecasting

Postproduction

• Editing• Import music and sound effects• Add effects and normalize• Fine tune audio files• Export as MP3

Publishing

• Upload file to server• Create RSS feed file

Or• Use Edublogs or Podbean to host

your podcast

Audacity• Download and Install Audacity Software

• http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download

• Download and Install the LAME MP3 Encoder• http://lame.buanzo.com.ar

• Ensure that your Recording and Playback Devices are Configured

• Start Audacity• Record a Podcast• Export Podcast to an MP3 File

Uploading your Podcast to the Internet

• Create an account at Podbean.com• Upload Podcast files to Podbean.com

Further Questions

      

For more information please address all correspondence to:

Robert R. HeinrichThe Richard Stockton College of NJ609-626-6039Email: robert.heinrich@stockton.edu