Have you tried Odiogo yet? Easily converts blog posts to podcasts

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Permalink Reply by Sue Palmer on February 24, 2008 at 5:10pm

Hi Frank. Thanks for posting this. It looks interesting. As someone who is looking for ways to get more content into the "ears" of my students, I want to explore how I can use this in my classroom.

Sue

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Permalink Reply by Frank, Divergent Learner on February 25, 2008 at 6:41am

Time savings, I pushed 1 button and got the entire blog (many many posts) converted into a podcast RSS. Now my entire blog is exportable to iTunes and other RSS readers for mass syndication. Could you imagine going back into your posts (if you have a blog) and doing an actual voice podcast for each and every post? I work full-time.

Now I can add podcasts that will help those that prefer sound while they surf around or twitter or whatever while they can listen, instead of demanding that their eyes are tuned in too. Huge efficiency of effort, and the voice quality is surprisingly good.

Perhaps, you don't have a good recording voice might be another reason ... or you have to record many times to "get it righ.t". Wesley Fryer (a hugely popular blogger) uses a similar program with his blog, but he uses Talkr.com ... I like odiogo because at least it uses a male voice (Talkr, female) and I am male, hehe.

You could also use it for language students to playback their written work in their blogs, to help them with pronunciation of authentically produced material.

It is just another resource in the toolkit arsenal. Let me ask you, why not? Can you think of some more creative reasons to use odiogo? ... that is what I am more interested in. Thanks

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Permalink Reply by Frank, Divergent Learner on February 25, 2008 at 7:49am

I think for some kinds of posts it would be better to record my or other real voices, like dialogs, or personal accountings, storytelling where voice modulation is key, etc. But for simply reporting an event or straight blog posts, I think using technology productively is a good idea. But, no ... I certainly would not use odiogo or talkr or other auto text-voice programs for ALL podcasts. Just wanted to clarify that.

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Permalink Reply by Frank, Divergent Learner on February 25, 2008 at 9:00am

Of course with RSS readers, I am referring to iTunes and such, those with a focus on audio content (all of my stuff is already syndicated in text RSS). iPods download audio content from iTunes mostly. So it doesn't hurt to exploit that media as well, as many bloggers do. And the amount of iPod users is phenomenal. I would love to reach them (need to spiffy up the content first) while they are jogging, driving, in the METRO, cooking, changing diapers, falling to sleep, etc., hehe!

I agree that own voice is more personal and effective for certain types of entries. But if you had a huge amount of archived text material that you just want to get into audio RSS feeds (not text), then this a a great tool to do just that. I have huge amounts of valuable posts in my EFL network, META Web 2.0 that just makes more sense to do convert with odiogo ... especially since the nature of the site has a language learning focus. Not so much in my blog.

Remember that learners come in all different sizes and shapes, some learn better with listening, than with reading. I want to get to all learning styles and multiples intelligences out there.

Thanks for the dialog, helps me to clarify what I'm (not) doing ....

BTW, I stopped by your blog and it said DELETED. Is it at a new URL? Or is that a personal statement about blogs? hehe! Thanks so much! --Frank

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Permalink Reply by ddeubel on May 26, 2008 at 5:32pm

I've been using Odiogo and it really is cool from my perspective -- English as a foreign or second language. It brings TTS (text to speech) to the fore and really could be an adaptable tool, in that educators could use it much like I presently use the more primitive Voz it -- to bring voice to their text to support student learning.

What hasn't been said here is how to put a embed a player on one's website. I use the Yahoo Easylistener. I usually don't like yahoo stuff but this is so cool! This easy code maker makes it on demand and easy listener will also play automatically or will also just read ANY audio file on a page without having to punch them in individually.

Here's an example of one of my blog feeds, about the Mars Mission and using this in the classroom. Some great activities there.

Further with audio go , if you click "stream all audio" and embed that link on your page -- it will text to speech in windows media player, all your blog! I also use it for our forums -- this is it.

enjoy odiogo....

David
http://eflclassroom.ning.com

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Permalink Reply by Jack Olmsted on May 26, 2008 at 8:46pm

We added Odiogo to our blog, LD Live, a month ago and have encouraged other bloggers to add the easy to install widget to their sites.

One thing it does not do is enclode all former posts (unless I'm missing something). See our April Archives.

Do you know if Odiogo can be added to Ning blogs or forum discussions? I'd like to add it to a new AD/HD Ning Network that I'm developing.

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