Recording Your Own Podcasts

Once you have explored downloading and listening to podcasts and using them in your classroom, you may want to try recording one of your own. You should consider the following when creating your podcast:

1. Planning Your Podcast
   
   1. What is your focus or purpose?
   2. What are you going to say?
   3. How long should it be?
   4. How often should you create and post a new podcast?
      
      
2. Formatting and Structuring Your Podcast
   
   
   1. It should have a beginning (Intro), middle and end. Audiences like structure.
   2. Be careful of slander and defamation. Remember this is a public media.
   3. Use music or other digital elements legally.
      
      
3. Startup Essentials for Production and Broadcasting
   Your set-up can go from relatively inexpensive and easy to very expensive and sophisticated. A basic startup up might include the following:
   
   
   1. A USB-type headset/microphone combination similar to those used for gaming with noise canceling such as those by Logitech. I am using the USB Headset 350 for now.
      
      
   2. A computer with digital audio recording capabilities.
      
      
   3. Audio recording software such as Audacity for Windows, Mac, and GNU/Linux (free), and Apple Garage Band for Mac. Audio software is used in the production and post production of a podcast.
      
      
      • You can download Audacity for Windows, Mac, or GNU/Linux here.
        
        
      • You can purchase Garage Band as a part of iLife '06 here.
        
        
      • Tutorials for both of these programs are online:
        
        
        1. Audacity Tutorials (The one by Dan Eliot includes video.)
           
           
        2. Garage Band Tutorial (includes video)
           
           
   4. Once you have created your MP3 file you will need to publish it as a podcast. To do this you will need to generate the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. This is XML code stored on the web as a text file. The code identifies when the last episode was added to your list of podcasts, its title, and brief description of the episode. It also contains information about the location, size, and type of file associated with the feed. It does not contain the file itself. (If you are technologically adept, you can learn to write the code yourself.)
      
      However, if you don't want to be bothered writing code, there are many programs that write the XML for you. A half a year ago there were many that were free. Now however, you can get them for a fee and include Podcast Maker for Mac or FeedForAll for Mac or Windows, or Feeder for Mac to create the RSS feed for your podcast and upload it to a webserver capable of broadcasting podcast files.
      
      
   5. A podcasting webserver of some sort. (Podcast files take up large band widths when downloading.) One that I have heard about and that host NPR and National Geographic is Liberated Syndication. You can go to this site and check out their interface and their services.
      
      
   6. Optional: You can then submit your podcast (RSS feed) to Podcast directories such as iTunes.