What is a Podcast?
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"The best way to understand podcasting is to imagine a merger between blogging (regularly posted articles of news, insight, fun, grips, literature, and more) and radio (an established broadcasting medium that people have listened to for news and entertainment for generations).
"In the purest form of the term, Podcasts are published as RSS feeds (most blogging software features RSS feed generation). Listeners are notified of new programs by their aggregators, which then download the programs and then transfer them to the listener's MP3 audio player, such as an iPod. Get it? Podcasting!"
- The Education Podcast Network
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Podcasting is very similar to an internet version of radio or TV, where you find a podcast "channel" that you like and tune in just as you would tune your dial to Classical 89.1FM or to PBS on channel 11. Once you find a channel you like they will have several programs that you can listen to or download to your iPod or other multimedia player.
One stark difference between podcasting and radio or TV, though, is that you can tune in whenever you want to. Podcast channels don''t broadcast regular programming that must be viewed during their initial broadcast. If you find a station you like, you can download its previously broadcast programs as well as subscribe to its RSS feed to get newly published programs as they come out.
Networking Tools:
Educational Podcast Network is a collection of podcast programming that is helpful for teachers. The site is divided up by grade level and subject area to provide ease while looking for content to use in your classroom.
Foobar is an advanced freeware audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include full unicode support, ReplayGain support and native support for several popular audio formats.
Gabcast is a website where you can create and distribute podcasts, audioblogs, and other audio content.
Gcast allows you to create own audio broadcast, where you can easily record voice messages, mix in your favorite music, and share it all for the world to hear.
Howcast hosts wiki guides and videos created and posted by users that you could potentially download as video podcasts.
iTunes is a music playing program created by Apple, the manufacturer of the iPod. It features easy interfacing between your hard drive's music collection and your iPod.
Podbean is an easy way to start podcasting. Through Podbean you can publish, find, and subscribe to podcasts, by collecting your favorite podcasts in one place.
Songbird is an open-source customizable music player that's under active development.
Riffster Lite is great practice tool for kids or students to get started making music. It's slow-motion for audio: load a song, select loops and have Riffster play over them at any tempo to suit your style or ability. Freely adjust the pitch of songs too. Tweak recordings that don't match your instrument's tuning or simply shift keys to match your vocal range! It can be used to learn symphonic passages, guitar licks, keyboard tricks, vocal parts, or be used for transcription.
WinAmp is a popular free audio player.
Articles:
The Beginnings of Podcasts
Best Practices for using Podcasts in education
Subscribing to a Station's RSS Feed
Choosing a microphone and other pocasting hardware
What Microphone Do I Get
Take Control of Podcasting on the Mac
Helpful "How to" Tools:
Creating mp3 Files
Reaper Aids in recording, editing, processing, mixing, and mastering MIDI and multitrack audio.
Levelator A free software program that adjusts the audio levels within your podcast to make various voices become the same volume.
If you are interested in purchasing a mic, here is some information about the Snowflake (a professional USB mic) and the Samson C01U (professional USB mic). By shopping around on the Internet, you can find both for $90 or less.
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Comments (22)
Brian Davis said
at 7:02 pm on Oct 15, 2008
hey everyone - I think the rubric and assignment page was geared much more towards the audio and video categories as podcasts really aren't there at all. I wonder what I'm supposed to write about and since I'm in a hurry I think I'll at least start the "Best Practices for using Podcasts in education" article. I think that will be much better if we all pitch in but I'll at least get it started for now and we can spiff it up later. Maybe we all just wanna start by making that really good and then we can branch it off into separate articles. Whatcha think?
Brian Davis said
at 8:31 pm on Oct 15, 2008
Update: OK so I thought for a while and decided to do an article "subscribing to a station's RSS feed." I left the other stuff I started out with in case anyone wanted to pick it up, but would not be offended if it were trashed.
I'll be back on Monday so I help edit and stuff.
Matt Sproul said
at 10:58 am on Oct 20, 2008
Is anyone else in our group out there?
Kimberly McCollum said
at 1:13 pm on Oct 20, 2008
Emily has been working on the project, but is having difficulty accessing the wiki. You should hear from her soon.
emily.drechsler@... said
at 1:15 pm on Oct 20, 2008
Ok here I am sorry about the long wait
emily.drechsler@... said
at 1:32 pm on Oct 20, 2008
I have taken a look at the Index and there are some great sites to help us in podcasts. I am reviewing the items under 'Audio' to see if they can help.
Matt Sproul said
at 2:04 pm on Oct 20, 2008
I was thinking about doing a section on audacity so we could show how to make mp3 files that could be used in podcasts. Is there anyone that wants to tackle best practices?
emily.drechsler@... said
at 2:38 pm on Oct 20, 2008
yeah that sounds good. There are some great tools in the index that I think should be added. I can do the best practices thoughI am not sure where to go with it. I will give it a try
emily.drechsler@... said
at 2:42 pm on Oct 20, 2008
I think that maybe wavosaur, Gabcast, the levelator, pod bean, gcast, the educational podcast network should also be included. How should we split that up?
Matt Sproul said
at 3:44 pm on Oct 20, 2008
? hopefully some others from the group see this and will volunteer.
emily.drechsler@... said
at 5:19 pm on Oct 20, 2008
Kim I hope that you can do brief one or two sentence summeries about the links that do not have them.
emily.drechsler@... said
at 5:19 pm on Oct 20, 2008
If you think that other links from the Index apply go ahead and add them too!
(account deleted) said
at 10:36 pm on Oct 20, 2008
Yeah, I'll write brief summaries for the links.
(account deleted) said
at 11:55 pm on Oct 20, 2008
I'm not really sure what else to write an article about, you've covered where to find podcasts that apply to education, how to subscribe to them, and how to create one using an mp3. Any advice on where to go from here?
emily.drechsler@... said
at 5:03 pm on Oct 21, 2008
Thanks Kim that was a good idea
emily.drechsler@... said
at 5:04 pm on Oct 21, 2008
How should we edit? Maybe we should just edit the person who is below us on the group list.
Matt Sproul said
at 9:49 am on Oct 22, 2008
I think that is a good idea. That means I have Brian, right?
emily.drechsler@... said
at 11:00 am on Oct 23, 2008
Yeah
Brian Davis said
at 2:00 pm on Oct 23, 2008
hey everyone i'm back. =) did you know you can fly to beijing faster than a bus ride from provo to el paso?
So I will edit Emily's article... anything else that I should do posthaste?
Brian Davis said
at 4:48 pm on Oct 23, 2008
Also I call rummaging through the "presentations" group's pages to do the links.
Kimberly McCollum said
at 3:46 pm on Oct 27, 2008
Here are some resources that a colleague of mine posted on her blog. Use them if you want. http://technologymavin.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/podcasting-links
Brian Davis said
at 1:07 pm on Oct 31, 2008
I wanted to put the resources under appropriate headings (like articles under articles and how-to under how-to; do we need to cite or credit your friend's site?
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