One of the tools I didn’t get up to in the Online Pedagogy workshop at ETA conference was podcasting.

For those after some information:

• A podcast is an audio (sometimes also video) recording that can be downloaded, ‘streamed’ and subscribed to by users.
• The word originally was a blend of the words ‘iPod’ and ‘Broadcast’, but they can actually be used anywhere (not just iPods!), so now the word stands for ‘Personal On Demand broadCAST’

• I use Audacity to record my podcasts.  It is free, and very easy to use – you just need a microphone plugged into your computer.
  • Download Audacity here.
  • Watch a tutorial for Audacity on YouTube here. (There are lots of different tutorials on YouTube for Audacity, as well as other programs you can search for)
• And I use PodBean (www.podbean.com) to put my podcasts up on the web.  It is like a blog, but for your podcasts.

I also heard that podOmatic is a good site for podcasting.  It looks like you can record straight on to the podOmatic website, cutting out the need to use Audacity.  Persoanlly, I like to use Audacity first, so that I have the sounds file saved on my own computer.  This means it is backed up, I can use it without being online, and if you wanted to you could even get the files put up on your school website or intranet (one day I plan to actually do this!)