Journey to the Podcast...

I have to admit, podcasting is not one of my favourite tools, and I cringe when I hear the word. I think it is partly due to the fact that I am not a very auditory person…I need visuals. I would much rather sit and read a book than listen to an audio book, and actually, I tend to not even remember what has been said if it is just auditory. I was commenting to my husband just the other day that I probably would have enjoyed it more when my elementary teacher read novels out loud to us if I could have followed along with the book. It’s just something that I realize about myself, so I deal with it. So podcasts aren’t my favourite tool, but I know that many others enjoy them, so I will learn more about them!

This chapter by Richardson, though explaining podcasts, is helping me to understand RSS feed a little better (p.113). This automatic updates that a person can subscribe to is quite amazing. I am thinking that is similar to what we have set up for our class blogs in google reader (??)

Richardson describes the access of podcasts through itunes (p.114). I decided to take a look through my itunes account. I was quite surprised at the vast amount available! I searched through the “More Education – K-12” and found podcasts of a young girl reading story books. All of these podcasts were free. I could certainly see the educational implications for these – especially if a student had the actual book in their hands. The people who created the podcast even made sure there was a “jingle” to turn the page. Browsing through the many different podcasts made me realize some of the different uses for them. I think it would be a great idea to have some of the older students in the school create podcasts of themselves reading some picture books for the younger students in the school!

Okay, so I downloaded Audacity, had it working, and recorded a quick “hello”. I thought I would try plugging in a mic, and it didn’t work, so I unplugged it. Now I can’t record any sound, so I don’t know what happened. Grrr…I don’t have time to troubleshoot like this when I have no idea how to troubleshoot!! Will come back to this later….

Okay, so I googled how to turn my microphone sound back on, and I think I found it. Nope…didn’t work in Audacity.

So I decided to move on to a Screencast. I haven’t done this yet, but I think this can be a useful tool, especially for teaching things on the internet, or for computer use. Many upper elementary students may not be as technologically savvy as others, and having this interactive way to learn things incorporates visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning!

Just waiting for Jing to install…

Back to Audacity. It took me a bit, but I finally figured out how to get the mic turned back on for my laptop. After twisting my daughter’s arm a bit, she agreed to play one of her short fiddle tunes on her violin for by podcast assignment. It was really cool how I could quickly delete the shuffling sounds at the beginning, and some extra background noise at the end of the recording with a simple highlight and delete. Now to figure out how to get it to my blog. I am hoping the Richardson text will guide me through that part too!

Well, not too much luck so far. I was able to record in Audacity, convert to MP3 using Switch Sound File Converter, but now I don’t know how to embed it into my Blog. Time to enlist the help of Aaron. Going to take a break from this for now.

Heard from Aaron, so created yet ANOTHER account with SoundCloud so that I could upload the MP3 and share onto my Blog. Going to give it a try to see if it works…

https://soundcloud.com/nsauer/violinpodcast1

or... (not sure which one to use)

If it works, you will be able to hear my daughter playing a short fiddle song on her violin!
If not...I will have to wait for Aaron to help troubleshoot! 

Ah...there it is! I had to switch to HTML when editing my post, and then paste the link at the end. 
Hope it works this time. If so, thanks Aaron!