Large podcasts

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Permalink Reply by John Plummer on September 5, 2008 at 8:31pm

I had a guy ask me to record texts and whole chapters from a book onto cd for him and I used Audacity. It's easy to use and once I got the hang of using it it was just the matter of getting the right speed for him to understand. The website is http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

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Permalink Reply by nlowell on September 6, 2008 at 7:56am

I'm not sure what you're asking.

45 minutes of audio isn't *that* long even at very high quality. Are you talking about audio? Or are you doing video?

Podcasting is a pretty good mechanism for distributing content because the actual download can be timeshifted to a non-demand time.

As far as recording - as John points out - Audacity is free, very reliable, and easy to use. The challenge is getting good audio quality and then finding the right sample rate.

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that "recording" is not "podcasting" -- I've flogged this horse before so I'll leave it at that.

How many of these are you going to do? How often? How many different voices are you going to merge? What're the parameters for downloading? Should you be doing podcast at all? Or maybe using Bittorrent? Moving a large file to a lot of people on a short time period might indicate that podcasting isn't the best technology for distribution, but bittorrent might be ideal.

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Permalink Reply by Erik Johnson on September 6, 2008 at 8:37am

ooooo, that's a long one. I use Garageband or iMovie and have helped classes create large shows, but whoa! 45 minutes, just seems too large. I prefer to break those long shows into short segments for each kid...if possible. Unwanted comment, sorry.

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Permalink Reply by Sue Palmer on September 6, 2008 at 11:12am

I totally agree that it is best to have shorter recordings for everyones use. I have created video screencasts for parents this year as part of a Parents Page Blog I have on my school site, and I try to keep it to under 15 minutes. I create under 10 minute podcasts for my students-- ( Masterycast in iTunes) and on my site www.masterymaze.com. I have found this to be the best for their attention span.

However-- even as an adult listener to podcasts myself, I find I prefer those which are shorter as well. Time is an issue. My most recent podcast, MasteryCast Chat is designed for teachers, and again I am keeping them to about 15 minutes.

I do not have any file size issues with anything I produce.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

Sue P.

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Permalink Reply by nlowell on September 6, 2008 at 11:21am

Well, that *does* raise the issue that I'd assumed that Peggy had already resolved.

I'm working from the assumption that she has a NEED to do a 45 minute podcast for some particular reason.

Myself, I shoot for a 25-35 minute window to cover the "commute/workout crowd" with a nice slice of content, but I avoid the use of audio or video for instructional purposes so that's probably not generalizable.

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Permalink Reply by Sue Palmer on September 6, 2008 at 11:41am

I agree it depends on the audience and purpose. I personally find myself getting bored with almost anything longer than 30 minutes. I do listen to Leo Laporte's stuff because it is so entertaining, however even with that, I find myself really only getting the content in the first half. When I first started creating content for my students, it was much longer and did not work. It certainly is not an absolute-- agreed!

Sue

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Permalink Reply by Donna Millard on October 9, 2008 at 10:11am

Hey, Sue. You're not alone with the length of podcasts. Did you know that research has shown that students won't listen to anything beyond the average song length? The joy of podcasting is to catch those brief learning experiences not the replacement of a class lecture or notes; it simply doesn't work in that format. Here's a couple citations if you're interested:

Lee, M.J.W., McLoughlin, C. & Chan, A. (2008). Talk the talk: learner-generated podcasts as catalysts -for knowledge creation. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(3), 501-521. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2007.00746.x

Evans, C. (2008). The effectiveness of m-learning in the form of podcast revision lectures in higher education. Computers & Education, 50, 491-498. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2007.09.016

Bull, G. (2005). Podcasting and the long tail. Learning and Leading with Technology, 33(3), 24-25.

Lee, M.J.W. & Chan, A. (2007). Pervasive, lifestyle-integrated mobile learning for distance learners: an analysis and unexpected results from a podcasting study. Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning, 22(3), 201-218. doi: 10.1080/02680510701619810

McLoughlin, C. & Lee, M.J.W. (2007) Social software and participatory learning: pedagogical choices with technology affordances in the Web 2.0 era. Proceedings ascilite Singapore 2007. www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/procs/mcloughlin.pdf

Campbell, G. (2005). There’s something in the air: podcasting in education. Educause Review, 40(6), 33-46. http://connect.educause.edu/library/ERM056W

Langhorst, E. (2007). After the bell, beyond. Educational Leadership, 64(8), pp. 74-77.

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