McGraw-Hill Companies
How-To Article
How-To Articles > Technology Integration > Grades 6 - 8 > Beyond Podcasting Basics
Grade Levels K - 2
Grade Levels K - 2
Grade Levels 3 - 5
Grade Levels 3 - 5
Grade Levels 6 - 8
Grade Levels 6 - 8
Grade Levels 9 - 12
Grade Levels 9 - 12
Kinesthetic Learner
Kinesthetic Learner
Visual Learner
Visual Learner
Auditory Learner
Auditory Learner
Technology Integration
Technology Integration

Beyond Podcasting Basics

Once teachers and students have mastered the basic concepts of podcasting, they can produce more full-featured professional podcasts.
Technology Integration Technology Integration Print this page Save this page E-mail this page
Once teachers and students have mastered the basic concepts of podcasting, they can produce more full-featured professional podcasts. Spending a little bit of money and time on equipment, software, and literature that supports podcasting go along way toward publishing more professional sounding and looking podcasts.
 
Podcasts can be carefully edited and make use of music, photography, video, and other supportive features such as web links and RSS feeds (RSS is used to allow others to subscribe to teacher- and student-made podcasts).
 
Selecting Sound Equipment
The most inexpensive way to capture sound is to use the sound input jack on most computers. Although this will work, the sound quality will not be as clean and clear as other methods.
 
Most computers today have a USB 2.0 port for peripherals. The keyboard and mouse, along with printers, scanners, and external hard drives, are connected via the USB port. There is a range of good quality USB microphones that plug right into the USB port and are ready to use for recording. The sound that enters the computer is already in digital format , which translates to better sound quality. Expect to pay from $40 on the low end to more than $300 for high-end microphones.
 
Recording Tips
One of the best tutorials for learning how to set up good audio for podcasts is located at the Apple Web site. Click on the link titled, The Podcast Recipe: Producing a Successful Show. This free, three-part tutorial is specific to Macintosh computers, but the principles discussed can be transferred to any operating system platform.

Podcasting on a Mac
Perhaps one of the easiest and most sophisticated ways to produce a podcast is with a Macintosh application called Garageband 3. This program comes free with any new Macintosh.
 
Garageband is a music-authoring program that allows the user to mix music from available sound loops and even import music from a real instrument such as a piano. Teachers or students do not need to be musicians to use the program.
 
The program has an option to create a podcast from a set of tracks set up especially for podcasting. Choose the “New Podcast Episode” option when first launching the program. After loading a new podcast episode window, the program shows a track for a male voice, a female voice, jingles, radio sounds, and a track for insertion of photos and video. Other tracks can be added, but these tracks are usually sufficient. Most of the process is drag-and-drop which makes maneuvering the technology simple..
 
There are several excellent tutorials on the Internet to learn Garageband 3. The tutorial from Apple mentioned above is an excellent introduction. In the iTunes Music Store there are a number of podcasts about how to make podcasts.

You should also consider these links:
 
 
Windows Podcasting
Windows computers use the same sound equipment to produce a podcast. There are also programs similar to Garageband 3 for Windows, but most of this software costs anywhere from $30 and up. There is at least one great program that is a free download. This program is called Audacity.
 
Audacity can be downloaded at Audacity 
 
There are many tutorials on the internet to learn Audacity. Consider checking out the following links. The first link appears to be the most comprehensive.
 
 
 
Finding Music for Podcasts
Music and sound effects are plentiful on the Internet. While Garageband offers music to incorporate in to your podcast, Audacity does not. However, students certainly know how to find music.
 
What teachers must help students understand is the seriousness of copyright law. If students intend to broadcast their projects on the Internet, they should not be using copyrighted material.
 
The solution to this problem is to help students find music that uses a Creative Commons Attribution license. This license allows students to legally use this material as long as they give credit to the artist. The Creative Commons Web site explains the license and lists several websites that contain music that students can use. An especially good site to peruse is Jamendo.
 
Publishing a Podcast
There are several ways to make podcasts available. The iTunes Store is one especially popular way. The podcasts that students and teachers create are not actually hosted by Apple Inc. iTunes instead points to the place where the podcast is hosted on the Internet and pulls it from this location to the students’ or teachers’ computer hard drive.
 
Publish to the Web
The easiest way to publish a podcast on a Macintosh is to send it to iWeb and then publish a Web page in a .Mac account. The expense of this procedure may be too costly for a school setting. Both iWeb and .Mac software carry a subscription fee. Fortunately, Podomatic.com provides a free method to publish a podcast.
 
Publish to MP3
Podcasts do not have to be uploaded to the Internet to be made available to students. After the podcast has been exported, it will work like any other MP3 file. This file can be save in a folder on the school network for students and teachers to access. The Audacity tutorial explains how to save the podcast as an MP3.
McGraw-Hill Education The McGraw-Hill Companies