Podcasting at Sandaig Primary

Introduction

I have been a class teacher at Sandaig for 12 years, we have been adding audio to our website for the last year, we converted the existing audio and have been publishing new content as podcasts since May 2005.

I don't claim to be anything of an expert, but have used podcasting in the classroom with no audio expertise

Questions

In this presentation I'll give a brief overview of the

• What?
• Why?
• How?

Google Podcasting

• May 2005: 5,020,00
• October 2005: 32,000,000
• Now ?????

What is podcasting 2

Podcasting, a portmanteau of Apple's "iPod" and "broadcasting", is a method of publishing files to the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to a feed and receive new files automatically by subscription, usually at no cost. It first became popular in late 2004, used largely for audio files. ,/blockquote> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast

What is podcasting 3

What is podcasting @ Sandaig?

• Podcasting at Sandaig means is making audio files (most commonly in MP3 format) available online in a way that allows software to automatically download the files for listening at the user's convenience.
• But most folk will just listen in a browser (This is changing, is it?)
• An idea borrowed from RadioWaves.co.uk

I saw the RadioWaves stall at SETT 2004 and was really taken by the concept. I could not afford the subscription so started to look around for alternatives.

First I researched streaming servers and looked as embeding sound files in flash to allow them to play as they downloaded.

Finally I realised that mp3 files of course paly in a web browser, or flash as they download.

No iPod no problem

Podcasting does not need an iPod, the confusion arrises from the name.

All you really need to create a podcast is a computer with some means of recording sound.

Radio Sandaig

Radio Sandaig is the web page where you can listen to our podcasts.

It consists of a list of mp3 files with notes, a simple flash player which will list and play the mp3 files and links to the RSS feed.

iTunes

The RSS feed has been submitted to apple, so our podcast shows up in iTunes

Why Listen to Podcasts?

• Slower than reading
• Poorer linkage
• Can be poor quality

AN AUDIOBLOGGING MANIFESTO MP3 Anti podcast

http://www.idlewords.com/audio-manifesto.txt

But, podcasts can be listend to in the same way as radio, while you are doing something else, this is IMO their strong point.

Why Record Podcasts

In education there is a strong case for recording podcasts:

• Audience
• Communication
• Talking and listening (and reading and writing and thinking...)
• Fun

I have never carried out a lession that gets so much enthusiasm in children, they work at home, in spare time and bring new ideas to the process all the time.

How?

• Record
• Edit
• Publish

Record

• Sound Recorder
• Audacity
• Mini Disk
• iPod
• GarageBand
• Quicktime Pro

Edit in Audacity

• Volume
• Clicks and blip removal
• Add Background Music
• Export to MP3

We have used all these methods to record, mostly we use an iPod with an iTalk. Lots of other options exist, and there is a wealth of information out ther on the web.

Publish

This is where it gets interesting

Publish MP3 file and rss feed.

Hosting: school website, internet archive, blog space, podcast sites.

Upload via ftp, form...

RSS creation applications, text editor, FeedBurner, Odeo

RSS

<?xml version="1.0"?>
 <rss version="2.0">
	<channel>
	 <title>Radio Sandaig</title>
	 <link>http://www.sandaigprimary.co.uk/radio_sandaig/</link>
	 <description>An online Radio Station from Sandaig Primary</description>
	 <language>engb</language>
	 <copyright>2005</copyright>
	 <webMaster>john@sandaigprimary.co.uk</webMaster>
	 <ttl>1</ttl>
			<item>
				<title>Radio Sandaig June 05</title>
				<author>john@sandaigprimary.co.uk</author>
				<pubDate>Mon, 27 June 2005 12:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
				<description>
				Radio Sandaig Chat Show. Our most ambitious project yet....
			 <enclosure url="http://www.sandaigprimary.co.uk/radio_sandaig/mp3s/sandaig_chat_june_05.mp3" length="3528296"type="audio/mpeg" />
			</item>

RSS is a family of XML file formats for web syndication used by news websites and weblogs. They are used to provide items containing short descriptions of web content together with a link to the full version of the content. This information is delivered as an XML file called RSS feed, webfeed, RSS stream, or RSS channel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(protocol)