Promoting Podcasts: Step Four

Online comment regarding podcasts reflects the ability to subscribe and share these free prerecorded (usually not professionally edited) audio files. Fryer (2010) posted on his wiki, Teach Digital: Curriculum: Introduction to Educational Podcasting, "Feeds let you pull information when you want it, rather than having it pushed to you like spam. Podcasts use feeds so people can SUBSCRIBE to them with podcatching software like iTunes or Juice."(para 5)
I like accessing podcasts on Google reader and will use iTunes to catch TED talks, Clever Sheep, TVO's Big Ideas and CBC's Writers and Company.
Subscriptions are an integral part of podcasting. The Wizzard Media podcasting network celebrated "15,000 shows (which) encompass approximately 1 million audio and video episodes, downloaded over 1.4 billion times in 2009."

Source: http://www.allbusiness.com/media-telecommunications/internet-www/14548404-1.html#ixzz1bqtRFsuH

This post will illustrate some of the podOmatic tools used to promote and share podcasts.

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

The above link was added to this blog using the podOmatic share link designated for Blogger. 

When users click on a podcast listed in their profile the following episode screen shows what other podOmatic users see. The site allows social networking and comments for each podcast as well as the ability to share, embed, email and link to Facebook.

PodOmatic includes other tools for promoting podcasts.
My podcast URL is:    http://holwerda.podomatic.com

The RSS feed is: http://holwerda.podomatic.com/rss2.xml


I was able to add a podOmatic badge similar to the one below at the bottom of this blog which links to my podcast library. 

I enjoyed working with podOmatic to create and publish podcasts. I like the multi-track player and the ease of recording and playing episodes. I look forward to podcasting with my students. I anticipate being able to use podcasts/screencasts for staff professional development when introducing new technology. It will be far easier to email a link for a screen capture or a podcast  than to encourage staff to attend an after school session.

Preparing to Podcast-Speaking:Step Three

"Just because you or your students can create a podcast doesn't mean you should." (Williams, 2007. p.12) Consideration of the content for my podcast lead me to try to meet the need for audio texts for our ELL students and to record some of the stories in my repertoire.

Multitrack player option

To create my podcasts, two dual language books were chosen from the school library.  I chose to read the story We're Going on a Bear Hunt and made the recording using the Audacity program . After many attempts including deleting and rerecording sections of the tracks and cutting to correct timing errors,  I was finally satisfied with the results. I added a public domain music prelude and conclusion to the Audacity recording.

In order to provide a host for my Audacity recording I registered for a PodOmatic.com account and was able to upload my mp3 audacity file.
Upon closer inspection I found that I could record directly to PodOmatic with one button recording. Using the site's recording feature I created a podcast of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,  selected a photo for the podcast and promoted my podcasts by tagging, labeling them Education K-12 and embedding the codes in this post.

Note: PodOmatic does not allow access to the tracks for editing. I needed to record the story twice to correct miscues. 

Single-track player option

When I was prepared to add my podcast to the iTunes library I found that I was expected to register a credit card with the site. My hesitation to do so will limit my access to uploading to iTunes. I will depend on the PodOmatic site and this blog for promotion.

I recorded a telling of The Tailor using PodOmatic and was instantly successful completing the process and preparing to embed the podcast in this post.


PodOmatic allows users to select and embed either a multi-track player or single-track player. Listeners are able to scroll through seeing the photo representations and selecting the podcast of their choice.

I have added a page to the school library blog and embedded two of the podcasts for student access. The simplicity of accessing these podcasts does not require a screencast for student instruction. Instead I have created a jing.com screen capture to show how to use PodOmatic.
The jing.com screen cast is limited to five minutes and I found running both PodOmatic and Jing during the screen capture slowed down the internet connection considerably. Rerecording the jing screencast with all other windows closed allowed me to finish the screencast with time to spare.
I am proud of myself for being able to reduce the size of the jing image in the html embed code in order for the screencast to fit more neatly within the post. I will keep jing.com available on my desktop for future use.

 
In addition to creating podcasts for student projects, books for ELL learners, storytelling and teacher PD, Stodt (2009) suggests librarians can introduce podcasts
of "audio walking tours...to advertise new books and resources or to provide
information and news about the library." (p.104)