What is a podcast?

What is a Podcast?

What is a "podcast"? This question can be answered in several ways. A podcast is some what like a radio show that can be heard thorugh the Internet or downloaded to your MP3 player /ipod/CD and can be listened when you want to listen to it.

The wikipedia describes Podcasting as: the method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio programs or music videos, over the Internet using either the RSS or Atom syndication formats, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. A person that produces a podcast is usually called a "podcaster". The word itself is a combination of "i-Pod" and "broadcasting" but you do not need an i-Pod to listen to a podcast or record a podcast.A "blog" is a web site which typically places new content at the top of the page and can contain pictures, links and audio content. Many blogs are very easy to create and there is no need to have knowledge of HTML code or complicated web design. Blogs and podcasts are often work together as a podcast can be placed inside a blog.

Here is a great tutorial by Jason Van Orden that we will use to compliment the course. http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/index.htm

Creating Your Podcast (Audacity and uploadiing options)

Creating Your Podcast on a PC using Audacity

The application we will be using today to capture and edit sound is a software application named "Audacity".Audacity is a free program that can be used with both a Mac or a PC. Using Audacity you can record directly to the computer using an inexpensive microphone and you can then edit and layer your sound tracks.The free download for Audacity can be found here

If you have questions later on using Audacity you can check out these online tutorials for additional help and tips: Audacity TutorialsYour finished product using Audacity will be a WAV sound file. A WAV sound file takes up much more memory than an MP3 file so we want to convert the file to MP3 using audacity with lame.

We will use an Audacity Tutorial created in Flash by Jason Van Orden
http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/videos/01-audacity-setup/audacity-setup.html
We will use the tutorial for many other tips.

Create an account on http://www.ourmedia.org (with spinexpress) or http://www.archive.org/
Upload an image and link to your blog profiles
Upload your audio .mp3 file (note: problems uploading audio this week)

Other Tools to upload
1. Podbean http://www.podbean.com/ * Tom's reccommendation
2. PCastBaby http://www.pcastbaby.com
Another source to upload audio and video podcasts (10 meg free, then a cost)
3. Your school website

Readings

Articles for the week

Something in the Air http://www.educause.edu/er/erm05/erm0561.asp

Standford on iTunes http://itunes.stanford.edu/

Sample audio upload to school website
http://nrhs.nrsd.net/documents/podcast1.mp3
(note: problems with ourmedia.org)
Feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/hTZR