March 2008 — News
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Podcasting Basics: Simple Steps for Introducing Podcasting into Your K-8 Class, Part 2
In the first segment in this two-part series, teacher and consultant Brad Pearl explained what kinds of hardware and software you'll need to introduce podcasting into your classroom. He also shared advice for selecting a first project and getting students involved in the work of recording podcast segments.
In this segment, Pearl explains how to edit and publish the podcasts your class produces. He also offers suggestions for managing a classroom where it seems like every student is going off in a different direction in pursuit of the perfect podcast.
Meld Individual Segments into a Podcast
Once the segments are recorded, it's time to "sew" them together into a program. In the case of Pearl's class project, he assigned two "anchors" to introduce the segments. By now, he had several volunteers for that job--students who were already confident about their recording abilities."
This is where you tap into the power of GarageBand or Audacity. Both include drag-and-drop editing features that let the user mix and match recordings into a single file. As Pearl explained, "You just choose File > Import, and then [the recordings] come right into GarageBand, and you just move them around."
The editing work eventually can be taken over by the students themselves, once they become adept at the software. Pearl's older students also learned how to drop copyright-free music sequences into the podcast, as well as add sound effects, called "foleys." (He always checked their work to make sure students weren't adding something to a segment that would embarrass the students in that portion of the podcast.)
Prepare the Podcast for Online Posting
There are a multitude of places to publish podcasts, said Pearl. He publishes his to the Apple .Mac service, which hosts his domain, k12podcastacademy.com. The process is to go into a program on the Mac called iWeb, which generates a template for a podcast for that site. It includes placeholders for text, an image and the podcast media. Once he has added a Web page title, a picture and the description that describes the podcast, he clicks "publish," and iWeb takes care of pulling the podcast off his computer and posting it to the Web site. It also adds a "subscribe" button that lets subscribers download new episodes automatically to iTunes, the iPod library.
Non-Mac users might consider Podbean, said Pearl, a site popular with teachers that allows people to sign up for free accounts and publish their podcasts online.
If you have a blog, you can also host your podcasts there, but it's important that it include two functions: 1) some kind of function that lets fans subscribe so that they know when a new episode is published; 2) a link to the actual podcast file so people can download it.
