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Podcasting 1: Creating Cool Audio
Coming soon...
If you've done this you might be interested in furthering your skills: Podcasting 2: Sharing your audio online and Podcasting 3: Production techniques & Media Literacy
What people have said:
"This is something I can use immediately in the classroom"; "I've done some CPD and know how to do something at the end of it - I also know what I want to do next"
Course Summary
In this course participants aimed to answer the following questions:
- What is a podcast and why podcast in education?
- What do I need to listen to podcasts?
- What do I need to make a podcast (alone or with my class?)
- How do I record audio?
- How do I do some simple edits of that audio?
- How do I publish that audio?
Software to download & equipment to buy
Software
(if the software is not already on a Council machine then you will have to request installation through the IT Helpdesk):
- Mac users require no additional software: Garageband and iTunes are the two applications to use
You can also use Portable Audacity, running off a memory pen, in the short term.
Equipment
- One PC or Mac
- If your computer has no internal microphone you may need a Logitech USB Microphone
(Approx £10-15 - contact IT Helpdesk for most recent models and competitive prices)
- 'Line-in' microphones are less versatile, and do not work on Apple Macintosh computers
- It's useful to use portable audio recorders, such as iRivers, to limit the number of computers you need to record audio.
- It may be useful if you are working with a class to use headphones with headphone splitters such as the AP23 Headphone splitter available for under £1.
What is a podcast?
Want a fun version of this text? Try Asking a Ninja.
A podcast is an audio file, normally one of a series, of any length which a) can be found on the web and b) a user can subscribe to once in order to receive every episode thereafter.
In East Lothian, Musselburgh Grammar School was one of the first schools in Europe to launch a fairly regular schools podcast produced by students, mgsPodcast. The motivation of the kids was immense with this new medium to record their work, their views and opinions (Article: Podcasts offer the audience pupils crave). MGS are set to relaunch this school 'radio' podcast.
Podcasts have also been used in the course of classroom learning, particularly in Modern Languages to practice speaking and listening. Students have created some podcasts (Dunoon Grammar School, Sandaig Primary School, St Thomas of Aquins, Highland Schools) while teachers and companies have produced free audio to learn languages, find out about history, study mathematics...
Podcasting can also be used for formative assessment "two stars and a wish" type activities.
What do I need to listen to podcasts?
Finding a podcast already out there is a useful skill for a teacher. There are thousands of free podcasts providing another way to reinforce learning in the classroom or at home.
The easiest way to find podcasts is to download iTunes to your PC or Mac. Its podcast directory is searchable and has an education category. Go on! Take a look to see if there are any podcasts in your favourite subject or language.
What do I need to make a podcast (alone or with a class)?
Podcasting alone, to create materials
Providing some audio for lesson differentiation, project work, holiday top ups, extension tasks... it's really easy to do. You need one of each piece of software and hardware listed above. You also need a place to put your podcast online - that's tackled in Podcasting 2: Sharing your audio online.
Podcasting in the classroom
Podcasting is a great collaborative activity which concentrates the mind of even the most disengaged learners. To achieve this, though, ideal group sizes are THREE (maximum FOUR). What equipment you can get away with depends on how you organise preparation, script-writing, practice, recording, editing, peer review and extension tasks.
MINIMUM EQUIPMENT AVAILABLE for a class of 24:
1 Computer with software (4 pupils on rotation)
5 portable iRiver recorders (4 pupils)
IDEAL EQUIPMENT for a class of 24:
4 Computers with software (2 pupils)
4 portable iRiver recorders (4 pupils)
You should also consult the Guidelines on Social Media for Staff and for Pupils, and make sure that your school has sent out and received the relevant forms from this page.
How do I record audio?
- Drag the playhead to where you want to start recording
- Click the track you want to start recording onto, or create a new track
- When you're ready, click the record button (red circle).
- Turn off the audio of the computer (or stick in a pair of headphones) so that backing music etc does not come back through your microphone for a second time (avoids feedback and distortion)
- To stop, press the record button again.
- Don't forget to save, save, save your work. It is better to save your podcast to the Hard Disk of the machine while you are working on it (in case you lose connection with the server while working) and then, at the end of each session, drag it over to your server space.
How do I do simple edits on that audio?
- Review the audio, by dragging the playhead back to the beginning of the clip
- Press the play button (green circle or arrow '>')
- Now follow this Guide to Cutting audio.
- Now follow this Guide to Mixing Different Tracks.
- You may like to print out the screenshots and descriptions (pdf) (from Wes Fryar).
How do I publish that audio?
A separate CPD opportunity is offered entirely devoted to publishing audio and video online as a podcast. Podcasting 2: Sharing your audio online.
The following is a brief outline for more experienced users of iTunes and the Internet:
Make sure that any file you wish to share on the net is saved as an MP3 file. This is so that anyone can listen to it without the need for special software.
You can use the LAME Encoder you downloaded earlier to do this within Audacity, or directly through Garageband and iTunes on the Mac.
You can put up MP3 files on a school website, but it shouldn't be called a podcast (we can't subscribe to that in iTunes).
To turn that MP3 into part of a podcast you should publish one audio file in a blog entry.
Then tell iTunes your podcast exists by submitting your podcast from its iTunes Music Store (within the iTunes application).
You will need to copy and paste the 'RSS' feed from your blog into the podcast submission form in iTunes. The RSS address (it'll end in .xml or .atom or .rss) can be found by clicking the small orange icon on your blog page or blog page address bar. The address of the page which appears is the 'feed address' you should submit to iTunes.
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