Some organisations have gone into podcasting in a big way. Podcasts allow you to create audio content which is then accessible to your audience wherever and whenever. This has obvious advantages for revision and also presents an interesting alternative to the oral report for our students.

This post explains the process of creating, transferring to your computer, editing and publishing your podcasts and at the end I will attempt to expose some of the billions of awesome podcasts that are out there for your information, inspiration and entertainment.

Do I really sound like that?

Kerri The school has a bunch of Sony IC Recorders that you can break into her office and steal now borrow from the library. They create a file in MP3 format which are easy to use. Once you have gotten your hands on one, follow these steps:

1. Make sure it has a charged battery in it.

2. Turn it on by sliding the Hold<.>Power switch to Power.

3. Set the date and time if you need to.

4. Press the Rec/Pause button to begin recording, talk at it and then press the stop button once you’re done.

I know it’s in here somewhere

To get the MP3 that you have created off the recorder, follow these steps:

1. Open the USB connector that lives inside the device using the slider on the back.

2. Plug that directly into your computer’s USB port or use the little extension thingy that comes with it.

3. Find the device by opening Windows Explorer (Windows key + E) – it is called ‘IC Recorder’ and will appear where you would find your memory stick.

4. Open the folder that you created your podcast in (it’ll’ve automatically put it in Voice>Folder 1 unless you told it otherwise), find the correct file and transfer it to your computer.

5. Once you have finished, delete the file from the recorder using Windows Explorer, turn off the device, remove the battery and sneak it all back into Kerri’s office return it to the library.

Chop and change

To edit your podcast, you need a program like Audacity which, at the time of writing, could be downloaded here (if it isn’t there anymore, just google Audacity and it’ll come up). While you’re at it, download LAME from here and follow the steps to install it so that you can keep things in MP3 format (otherwise Audacity’ll only be able to create WAV files or something). Once you have downloaded Audacity and installed it, do this:

1. Open Audacity go to File>Open and open your podcast file.

2. Remove long pauses by selecting a section of the audio (click, drag and unclick to select) and then hit the Delete key.

3. You can copy and paste by selecting some audio (above) and typing Ctrl + C (Copy) and Ctrl + V (paste).

4. There are many more functions and keyboard shortcuts that can be explored in the Edit menu and some other baffling options in the other menus (Auto Duck!?!).

5. Once you have edited your file to your heart’s content, save it as an MP3 by going to File>Export Selection and selecting ‘MP3 file’ in the drop down menu at the bottom of the screen beneath the file name.

Viola!

Where can I put it?

Now that you have a podcast ready for publication, you can publish it in eWorkspace using the Media Gallery tool (and if you’re having trouble using this, call me).

If you want to publish it to the world you will need to create an account at one of the many websites that hosts podcasts. I put mine up on posterous.com and you can listen to the embarrassing result here.

Information, inspiration, entertainment

If you are looking for podcasts to share with your students, you can’t do much better than the radio stations. The ABC have a range of podcasts of their various shows available online as do many others. There are also any number of podcasts that you can find by googling terms like ‘education’ and ‘podcasts‘ such as this Sixty Second Science podcast. Ace!

Want to see a teacher in action? Check out Andrew Douche’s Biology Podcast that he publishes for his (and everyone else’s) VCE biology students.

If you’re simply looking to be entertained, there are tonnes of podcasts that you can download from iTunes. Download iTunes here and click the podcasts link to search or trawl through their impressive list.

Share your podcasting experiences below!