The internet is chock-full of helpful sites for kicking off your podcast, gathering fair-use content, and enhancing the presentation of your broadcast. The UMass OIT even has this tutorial available in pdf on Podcasting basics. Of course, before you can start, you need to know your subject and what equipment you’ll need. We’ve provided a short list of references and tips to help get the process rolling.
Getting Started
Before the video-enabled iPod and internet video-sharing sites like YouTube.com, podcasts were solely audio-based, used mainly by podcasters for creating radio-like broadcasts. While many podcasts have already started taking advantage of web-video technology, the importance of audio still remains. There are many ways to capture audio, either onto an external device, or directly into your computer. Many external or portable audio recording devices these days are equipped with USB technology, such as the Olympus VN-3100PC. This makes interfacing the device with your computer easy, but you’ll need to pay attention to compatibility (for instance, the Oylmpus VN-3100PC only works directly with a Windows machine). If you’re going to record directly into your computer, we suggest using a USB microphone, such as the Logitech ClearChat Pro USB or the BlueMic Snowball. Of course, if your computer is equipped with an audio input jack, you can capture audio from just about any device, bit it analog (such as a microcassette recorder), or a non-USB digital recording device. For further help capturing audio, see OIT’s handout on converting audio to a digital format.
Adding Content
The internet is a vast well of content, but a lot of it is covered under copyright protection. Luckily, there are some great resources on the internet that allow you to search for content in the public domain. These sights are littered with content that is free for the taking, but you should always make sure to check for Legal Notices or Rights Reserved on any content that you may be borrowing for your podcast.
Literature
Although relatively new, podcasts have received some serious attention from educational institutions and researchers. The following articles discuss podcasting as a pedagogical tool for content delivery, improving student engagement, and increasing student agency in writing.
- Duke Center for Instructional Technology 2006-2007 Annual Report on the Duke Digital Initiative (pdf)
- Managing the Podcast Lecture: A Hybrid Approach for Online Lectures in the Business Classroom
- The New “Podagogy”: Incorporating Podcasting into Journalism Education
- Enter Here: Personal Narrative and Digital Storytelling
- Digital Cultural Communication: Enabling new media and co-creation in South-East Asia
- EDUCAUSE: Seven Things You Should Know About Podcasting
Tips, Tricks, and Considerations
Podcasting can be tricky business, but it doesn’t have to be. There are loads of sites across the internet devoted to podcasting, from getting yourself started, to equipment reviews, to legal advice for avoiding copyright violations. We’ve organized a bunch of these sites on our Links page.