"Good things come slowly - especially in distance running." -Bill Dellinger, Oregon Track Coach

What a week it has been! If I thought creating a blog was scary, the podcast adventure was doubly so! This has been a very slow process, with much time spent exploring and experimenting before I finally felt confident enough to begin. Just ask my family about the time I've invested - they've been independently grazing from the fridge because Mom sure hasn't had time to cook dinner. Thank goodness my girlfriend took pity on me and invited us over for turkey dinner. But it feels like I've turned a real corner and am becoming more comfortable (and fearless) about interacting with and moving between a variety of applications.


I've managed to use Garage Band to create my podcast, and even imported a track from my iTunes and a photo from my iPhoto album. I played about with moving the tracks about and learned all about ducking and using a mixer. I am truly amazed that I did all this by myself following instructions from our Richardson text and online resources. My son had used Garage Band a bit but was absolutely no help at all when I had questions so I am feeling pretty smug that I can now create things he can't using this very intuitive program. Although I downloaded Audacity, I discovered it had overwhelmingly more features than I needed and Garage Band worked just fine for my first simple effort at podcast production.

Richardson's textbook, the course Trailfire, and "Podcasting: In Plain English" again set the stage for defining podcasts and explaining the basics. Richardson's explained what technology was needed and fortunately my MacBook Pro had the necessary features. The Podcasting For Teachers and Students handout by Tony Vincent which one of our group recommended was also a fabulous resource which nicely explained podcasting using Audacity. This week I also focussed on searching for additional practical "how to podcast" support sites and was amazed by the wealth of resources available to assist the real beginner.

I found a great website called Video Jug where questions are answered by experts and watched four videos by Danny Kelly, a professional podcaster for the London Times. He pointed out many of the advantages of podcasting such as listening whenever you want, being able to subscribe to podcasts in any genre you like and being able to retrieve and listen to programs you have missed. He listed tips on creating podcasts, although he didn't explore the "how to" aspect. In response to a question about the future of podcasts, Kelly feels that podcasts are one of the most important new facets of 2.0 and feels that they are "leading a revolution in entertainment" because of the flexibility of the medium. He also mentioned that while the vast majority of podcasts are free, some professional podcasts are available for a nominal fee. I discovered from the iTunes podcast site that the podcasts they list are also available for free - something I plan to take advantage of. I had mistakenly assumed one paid for podcast access so this was surprising to learn. From this site I linked to Stewart Headlam's How to Make a Podcast - Part 1 and 2 which proved the most useful nugget of "how to actually create a podcast" on the web. Headlam walks his audience through the steps of producing the podcast using screencasting to illustrate using either a PC and Mac with Garage Band. I highly recommend this resource but my only wish is for another installment to deal with the post-production and publishing stages. This last part of the process gave me the most difficulty and it took me hours of experimenting and referring to help sites to finally get the podcast saved. After unsuccessfully using OurMedia.org recommended by Richardson, I turned back to Tony Vincent's booklet for help. I finally was able to use Archive.org to upload my MP3 version of the podcast but somehow, in the process I lost my photo and the first few seconds of my podcast. At this point, I was so exhausted, that I could do no more. However, I think that I'd like to try this process once more to really see if I could streamline it and feel more comfortable with the steps. Each time I do a blog post it becomes easier and so it should be with podcasts too. It is important that I master this technology with greater fluency if I am to help students and colleagues learn how to use it.

The other extremely useful site I discovered was Web Tools 4U2 Use which contained an impressive one-stop shopping list of links related to podcasting with particular application to school libraries. This linked me to a great iTunes tutorial where I learned about features of iTunes which will enable me to subscribe to podcasts and load them onto my iPod touch - something I've been wanting to explore for some time. I was amazed that this application will even stop the subscription if you haven't listened to it for while and allow you to easily restart it when you wish - so no monstrous lists of podcasts queued up to add to your stress. Another great link I found was Podcast Alley which was a fine example of a listing of podcasts with a search capability for looking by genre and topic. This week I've been so busy with this podcast that I haven't been able to subscribe or download podcasts for my listening pleasure but I will report in a future blog how this goes.

Web Tools 4U2 Use also featured an impressive list of podcast applications for school library use. I can certainly see using podcasts as a feature on my school library website to promote new resources, explain directions or to use as links to explain new resources to students - much like Headlam's video assisted me. For students with written output difficulties or reading difficulties podcasts offer great instructional alternatives. I also agree with Kelly's comments about the future potential of podcasts. The freedom to watch or listen to radio or TV programs when convenient holds appeal in our busy lives but it also has direct educational application. For example, History classes can watch PBS specials on WWII, literature classes can listen to author interviews and teachers can use commuting time to catch up on the latest professional development online journals. Richardson also mentions recording recitals, dissections, creating travel journals and creating pod-tours, all ideas I can easily connect to the medium of podcasts. In the classroom either a computer or one connected with an in-focus camera plus a good set of speakers, would enable all students to watch or listen to podcasts. No more booking video players and ordering AV tapes. Students could easily download podcasts to their cellphones or MP3 players to listen to or review at home. The best part is that podcasts are another medium for communicating with students on their level, using technology with which they are comfortable. And if students can connect with podcasts then the next step is to ensure that they have opportunities to create their own podcasts.

In the Webtools4u2Use site there was a great quote about podcasts which sums up this week's blog quite nicely: "We can learn from listening to podcasts, but many times we can learn more by creating them."