What is Podcasting? 
Record lessons for students.
Planning Your Podcast
Actually recording and mixing your podcast can seem like a dauntiing task at first, but, rest assured, doing so is a fairly simple process once you've practiced doing so a couple of times. There are three basic tools you will need to record and mix any podcast:
After you have created a podcast on your computer, the next step is to actually publish your podcast to the Internet. First, you must find a site that will host your audio file on a server. While there are a number of sites out there that offer free hosting to educators, I'd encourage you to consider hosting your audio file, for free, at the 
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Podcasting
Educational Podcasting
The term podcasting derives its name from Apple's iPod, but to create a podcast or even to listen to one, you don't need to own an iPod, or any portable music player for that matter. In a nutshell, Podcasting is a new type of online media delivery. The easiest way to explain what a podcast is is to describe it as a user-created, online, radio program with one significant difference. While radio programs are scheduled and made available only at certain times of the day, a podcast can be accessed or downloaded at any time and thus is made available on-demand to the listener. When we create podcasts we are in fact creating and posting an audio file to the internet. Most commonly, these audio files are in an .mp3 file format, but can exist in any number of audio file types including, .wav, .ogg, and .aiff. Typically, an RSS feed is associated with user created podcasts that allows listeners to subscribe to the podcast. A consumer uses a type of software known as an aggregator, sometimes called a podcatcher or podcast receiver, to subscribe to and manage their feeds. iTunes and Juice are two examples of podcatching software.
Why Create Podcasts with Your Students?
How Podcasts Can be Used in Your Classroom
Create a short introduction about your school or class that new students or parents can liten to and learn from. Create a class/school online radio station Encourage and allow for the option of students to submit assigned work as podcasts Create audio resources for use by sight impaired students Explore the possibilitiy of using podcasts as part of project research materials Use/Create foreign language podcasts to improve liguistic skills Create a podcast of a class fieldtrip Encourage students to interview relatives and develop oral histories. Ask students to create a podcast to meet a real need.
Educational Examples of Podcasts Radio WillowWeb - a podcast for kids and by kids from the students at Willowdale Elemetary School in Omaha, Nebraska. Each new show is called a Willowcast. Each Willowcast can be heard on WillowWeb as an mp3 digital audio file. Speaking of History - a podcast and blog maintained by an 8th grade American History teacher in Missouri who attempts to use technology to enhance the curriculum. Teaching about George, Thomas and Abe using the latest technology. Korero Pt. England School Podcast - from Aukland, New Zealand, Korero Pt England (KPE) has a global audience and won the ComputerWorld Excellence Award in 2006.
Steps to Making a Podcast
Planning your podcast is an essential first step in producing any quality production. Especially in a classroom setting, determining roles that various students will play, as well as designing the entire show from start to finish will save you time and headaches in the long run. Some things to consider as you begin planning your podcast are: The theme of the show Individual segment topics Script writing, especially for younger studentss The sudience the show is aimed towards Sound effects and music incorporated into your broadcast What your teaser will include
Feel free to use one of the planning worksheets below to help you get started planning your broadcast, or develop your own based on your particular needs.
Producing and Mixing Your Podcast
There are a number of sites on the Internet that will allow you to download, and use (royalty free) music and sound effect clips for use in your podcast, some of those sites include:
How to Publish Your Podcast
Other sites you may want to consider to host your audio file include: edublogs.tv - Edublogs is a free hosting solution that allows you to upload both video and audio podcasts. The simple to use embed code associated with each upload makes it easy to place a copy of your podcast directly on your homepage, just copy and paste.
Now that you have your podcast hosted on a server someplace you will generally want to embed your podcast into a webpage of some sort. You may want to consider making your podcast part of your webpage, blog, or wiki. While some plugins are available that make embedding podcasts a relativly simple procedure, eg. Podpress if you are running a WordPress blog, often you will need to rely on hard-coding the file into your page. The following bit of code generally works to embed your file into your internet site and will automatically place a player into your page:
<embed src="http://URL_OF_YOUR_AUDIO_FILE" autoplay="false">
Note: by setting autoplay to "false" users will have to click on a play button in order to listen to your podcast, changing the value to true will automatically begin playing your podcast after the web page is loaded.
Evaluating Your Podcast
The final step in your podcasting experience is to sit back and actively listen to the broadcast you have created. Consider, as you are listening, what worked well in this episode and what needs to be improved upon in future podcasts.
Presentation and Workshop Highlights
Podcasting Participants
Additional Tools and Resources
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