If you are like me you have listened to your fair share of podcasts while driving, lying in bed, or maybe even in the shower, but have you made one of your own. For class our assignment was to make a short 2-3 minute podcast on a topic of our choice using either Record MP3 or some other tool or application. I chose Audacity mainly because I had heard goo things about it and I was concerned that by trying to use a tool like record mp3 that I would spend to much time recording and rerecording trying to get a good finished product.
I made a good choice Audacity is a sophisticated program but is fairly intuitive to use. If you move a slider, click a mouse and are willing to spend some time you can create a remarkably professional sounding recording in not much time. The software allowed me easily edit our unwanted noises and when I struggled with the end of my podcast, I was able to append the initial recording, record three more takes and cut until I got something that I liked. On a few occasions I cut two sections a little too close to each other, but I was able to fix this by inserting two seconds of silence(just a few mouse clicks were required. The ease of editing actually created a minor problem for me. I became a bit obsessed and really spent more time on the podcast than I had originally intended.
Audacity provides support for the product at their website and through a forum. Additional help is readily available on YouTube. The product is free and open source, but donations are encouraged. Would I use this for students. Perhaps. I think I would be more inclined to have them spend time on a screen-cast or a movie; these would produce a finished product that would be a bit more interesting and they would get practice scripting, task analyzing and producing a finished product with either of these projects just as they would with a podcast. Using a podcast and an alternative form of summative assessment might be interesting. I may give this a try.
Here is an example of an instructional video that is available on YouTube.
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