Making Waves

In the fall of 2004, Matthew Bischoff was an early adopter of a new Web technology called podcasting. Armed with only an Internet-wired computer, some free software, and a microphone, Matthew launched his own homegrown radio show, eventually attracting thousands of eager online listeners, who tuned in on a regular basis to hear his take on the coolest new technologies.

“This is Escape from the World,” Matthew says at the beginning of each show, introducing himself in his best, brimming-with-enthusiasm radio voice as a “13-year-old from New Jersey, podcasting from my bedroom.”

In the last two years, podcasting has really taken off, attracting tens of thousands of podcasters to the Web’s airwaves—a testament to both the technology’s accessibility and the startling motivation of so many with something to say.

Podcasting is just one of a suite of new tools that are taking the Internet and its users to new heights. As harbingers of the new Read/Write Web, or Web 2.0, these online tools—including blogs and wikis, both easy text-publishing technologies, along with publishing sites like Flickr.com for photos and YouTube.com for videos—are enabling people to create and publish content as never before.

Can you hear me now?

Podcasting involves the creation of digital audio files and the distribution of those files in a way that makes it easy for visitors to listen to them wherever and whenever it’s convenient. Despite the name, you don’t need an iPod to make it work—any MP3 player will do.

Podcasts are popping up all over the Web, and even traditional media outlets are getting into the act. NPR, for example, has launched a whole slew of audio programs that listeners can fetch for free at www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php. Or, if you like, you can listen to Meet the Press, ABC World News Tonight, and even Comedy Central, all via podcast.

Not surprisingly, the educational potential of podcasts is already being explored. In fact, two of the most popular podcasts, downloadable at Chinesepod.com and MyGermanClass.com, help listeners learn a new language by way of weekly audio episodes.

In schools, podcasts have been quick to take root. At Wells (ME) Elementary School, for instance, third- and fourth-grade students, assisted by teacher Bob Sprankle, create and produce a weekly series called “Room 208 Podcasts”, which covers everything from museum tours to oral history projects. Then there’s Radio WillowWeb, a show that describes itself as “a podcast for kids and by kids.”

Produced by students at Willowdale Elementary School in Omaha, NE, the regular radio show serves up news about events that occur both inside and outside the classroom. Numerous other podcasts, including some specializing in music and sports, are being produced by middle and high school students all over the country. And on college campuses, like Stanford’s and Purdue’s, instructors are podcasting class lectures and other presentations for students.

Educators are also creating podcasts of their own to benefit their peers, who, in turn, use these ideas to enhance their own classrooms. One good example, “The Savvy Technologist”, the blog of Tim Wilson, director of technology in the Buffalo-Hanover-Montrose School District in Buffalo, MN, features interviews with a host of educational movers and shakers that will inspire anyone who wants to boost student learning. Another rich source of advice is “Speaking of History”, a blog created by Eric Langhorst, an eighth-grade history teacher from Missouri (see “History Teacher 2.0,” April 2006, pp. 26–27), who, in his words, teaches “about George, Thomas, and Abe using the latest technology.” Indeed, Langhorst’s podcasts about his classroom and learning in general have earned him a recent national “Pushing the Envelope” award from Cable in the Classroom.

How can libraries harness the power of podcasts? Some ideas may seem fairly obvious. Media specialists, for example, can record students, teachers, and even administrators reading from or talking about their favorite books. Or groups of readers or members of a book club can record a discussion about literature. Podcasts can also be used to highlight featured books or new additions to your library’s collection. Care to record an interview with a children’s book author or another classroom across the globe? Skype, a free Internet telephone service, can help you do just that. The potential of podcasts is limited only by our own imaginations.

Getting started

Creating podcasts is basically a three-step process. And, provided you have a computer, it costs very little to get up and running.

First, you need to record a digital audio file. Depending on the type of computer you own, that might be the easiest part. On a Mac, you can use GarageBand, Apple’s audio tool. On a PC, you can download Audacity, a free Web-based recording and production program. Both applications allow you to easily record audio using your computer’s built-in microphone or an external mic. Regardless of what tool you use, it’s important that you export your recording as an MP3 file.

Next, you need to get that MP3 file onto a Web server. If you have access to one in your district, this should be a snap—just ask your Webmaster to help you. Alternatively, you may want to use a free file-hosting service, such as OurMedia.org or Odeo.com (which we’ll talk more about in a minute). By putting your file up on the Web, you create a unique Internet address for it, and this is key for the third and final step.

What makes a podcast a podcast is the ability of the listener to “subscribe” to a regular audio offering using an RSS feed (see “Merrily Down the Stream,” July 2006, pp. 40–42). The easiest way to get an RSS feed for your podcast is to use the free service at Feedburner.com. Just follow the instructions for creating a SmartCast feed.

To encourage people to subscribe to your podcast, you’ll need to advertise it. The easiest way to do that is to simply create a link from your school’s home page that points to the feed address (each RSS feed has its own unique URL). Or you can follow the lead of many other podcasters and create a blog on which you can host your podcast, as well as announce new episodes as they are published. In that case, the RSS feed for the blog and the podcast become one in the same.

The final step is to register your podcast feed with one or more podcast directories. The most popular of these is iTunes, which Apple offers as a free download. If you search for education-related podcasts on iTunes, you’ll retrieve thousands of entries. To get yours added to the mix, just look for the “Submit a Podcast.” Other directories you might consider using include PodcastAlley.com, Yahoo Podcasts, and the Education Podcast Network.

Now if you don’t want to go through the process of recording, editing, and finding a host and creating the feed yourself, there are a few options out there that make podcasting even easier. Odeo.com is one of them. Just create a free account and navigate over to the Odeo Studio, where, with your computer and a microphone, you can record through a Web interface that will automatically save the podcast to the Odeo server, create an RSS feed for your work, and provide a snippet of code that you can take and place anywhere on a Web page or blog, for instance. When readers click on the graphic representing this code, voilà, your podcast will begin to play. Podomatic.com also offers a similar service with up to 15 gigabytes of free storage. That’s hours of free recording space.

So, welcome to a new world of multimedia content that almost anyone can create. Your audience awaits you.