PoducateMe: Practical Solutions for Podcasting in Education
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program is a resource hog and cannot “hijack” audio from other applications.
GarageBand can record both ends of an iChat AV (Mac, Free) conversation but, unlike
Skype, iChat cannot place calls to landline or mobile phones (this is a critical shortcoming
for podcasts with an interview format). Still, many podcasters have reported great
success in using GarageBand to produce their shows.
($119.99, free on new Macs). GarageBand can also be purchased separately via Apple’s
Talking Panda’s iWriter ($29.95, Mac/PC, www.talkingpanda.com/iwriter/) is another nifty
application that will allow you to quickly and easily package lecture notes and/or audio
into an iPod-compatible format that you can email to students or post on the Web. iWriter
isn’t a podcasting application, but it does offer an attractive alternative method of
delivering content to students’ iPods.
Visit the PoducateMe Web site to review a wide selection of recording software listed on
Show Prep
I’ll detail the actual recording process momentarily. Before you begin recording, however,
you must adequately prepare for your production.
Show prep is not fun. It involves research, planning and coordination—all of which take
time, effort and a certain degree of patience. Do not attempt to “wing it.” Even the best
talk show hosts in the business prepare a comprehensive game plan well ahead of each
program. If your recording lacks structure or value for the listener, it doesn’t matter how
polished your audio quality is—your efforts will be wasted. Students will not download
your podcast and reflect on how good your new condenser microphone and FireWire
interface sounded. Content is king.
Planning
Prior to recording an episode of CareerChat, we identify a topic of potential interest to
students. This is accomplished by soliciting suggestions from students and input from the
Career Services staff. Involving students in the process helps us obtain meaningful
responses from interviewees and contributes to the word-of-mouth marketing of
CareerChat.
We generally attempt to produce episodes to coincide with relevant career workshops we
conduct on campus throughout the school year. For example, we present a session titled
“How to get a Government Job.” Shortly before the day of the workshop, we posted
“Working for the FBI” and informed students attending the session of the availability of
the episode. An episode featuring a student discussing her internship experience was
