PoducateMe: Practical Solutions for Podcasting in Education
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Printable copies of the guide are available for purchase and immediate download at
for a great set of all-around, every-day headphones to replace the woeful earbuds that
headphone ($39.94). My sister and I each own a set of these and they’re fantastic.
Some podcasters will edit their work while listening to the recording through a pair of the
earbuds supplied with iPods. They reason that since their recordings are destined for the
iPod, they are most likely to be listened to through these tiny ear inserts. Thus, these
podcasters edit to maximize sound quality as heard through earbuds. This reasoning may
be faulty, however. According to a 2006 survey conducted by Podtrac, a podcasting
service provider, more than half (56 percent) of the podcast audience listens to and views
podcasts on their computers, while only 46 percent of the audience plays the material on
a portable device such as an iPod.
Visit the PoducateMe Web site to review a wide selection of headphones listed in the
site’s Headphones section. (http://poducateme.com/hardware/#headphones).
Audio Recording Software
The considerations you took into account in choosing podcatching software applies with
selecting recording software, as well: features, cost, benefits, stability, support and ease
of use.
Because it is free, multiplatform and easy to use, Audacity
and editing sound on both Macs and PCs. However, you will not be able to utilize
dynamics processing plug-ins while recording with this software. We edit the CareerChat
podcast with Audacity, but record with Rogue Amoeba’s award-winning Audio Hijack Pro
(AHP) ($32, Mac, http://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/).
We settled on AHP because it is inexpensive, intuitive, stable, supports plug-ins and has
the very useful ability to “hijack” audio from both a microphone and any running
application into a single file. This is especially handy if you want to inject audio from
applications such as iTunes or Skype (Free, Mac/PC, www.skype.com/) into your
podcast.as you’re recording instead of adding it during the editing phase. Skype is cross-
platform Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software that we use to conduct Internet
phone interviews with our guests (more on this later).
