I have the students in my Wilkes/Discovery Instructional Masters degree class create a podcast as an assignment. In her reflection on podcasts, one of my student, Meredith Lambert wrote:
There is something different about the interaction between creator and consumer with podcasts then with written text. Because you’re hearing a person’s voice it makes it more personal. Recording your voice is much more personal than writing a reflection as well.
After reading that, I realized I had not produced a podcast in a very long time. I created a podcast series when I was an Administrator for Technology and had teachers who were doing cool things in the classroom share their passions. The series of 14 podcasts ran from 2005-2008.
I found all those files and put them up on my Kathy’s Korner blog on Anchor.fm, my current favorite podcasting creation tool and hosting site. I was surprised how applicable some of them still are and laughed at how others were so dated!
Here are links to a few of them:
- Technology tips for administrators
- Second Life professional development
- Nauset educators talk about technology
- The superintendent discusses “The World is Flat”
- Nauset Profiles: Rockwell Schrock
I even took the show on the road and produced some podcasts while away from the district with great educators!
Revisiting
Podcasts have grown in popularity since I created mine ten years ago. People love to listen to podcasts while driving, working out, walking, or when they want to be entertained. I am so glad the skill of listening has come back into favor!
So, instead of a full written blog post this month, I decided to create a podcast. After creating the podcast, I remembered how much time it actually takes to record, edit, and post a good podcast! Here are some organizational tips for those of you who want to give it a try!
- Find a good tool or app that allows you to create using their tool, upload you own audio file, will host the podcast, and automatically gives you an RSS address so others can “subscribe” to your podcast and receive any new episodes automatically. I recommend Anchor.fm.
- Write a script or at least an outline of what you will be talking about or, if interviewing someone, jot down some questions to guide the interview.
- Find a quiet place to record the podcast. Use a good microphone or a headset to keep outside noise at a minimum.
- Be prepared to edit the recording. Very few podcasts are perfect on the first take. To avoid re-recording, if you make a mistake, just pause (so you can make a cut) and restart that dialog again.
- I used to use Audacity to record my podcasts, but this time I went with Techsmith’s Camtasia and just exported the file as an audio file.
My Podcast
- The link if you want to see the episodes on their site: https://anchor.fm/kathy-schrock
- The direct link to the Augment Your Class with Augmented Reality episode I created for this blog post: https://anchor.fm/kathy-schrock/episodes/Augment-your-class-with-augmented-reality-e42fqf
- The link to add Kathy’s Korner podcast to your podcast aggregator:
- The actual RSS feed link for the podcast:
https://anchor.fm/s/429ac80/podcast/rss
Have you created podcasts in the past? Do you create them now? Provide us with some links on Twitter to your podcasts and let us know your tips and tricks for a successful podcast! #kathyschrock
