Podcasts

The term "podcast" is very popular to describe just about any voice content recorded and posted on the Internet. True podcasts use RSS, making the audio come to you automatically any time new content is created for a particular podcast. Use an aggregator such as //iTunes// to download, listen to, and synchronize podcasts. It is **free** to download iTunes (Mac or PC) and download and listen to podcasts.
 * Podcasts and Other Voice Recordings**

**A brief guide** 1. Download //iTunes// for your computer [] and install it. 2. Open it on your computer and go to the iTunes Store. 3. Click //Podcasts// (upper left). Click //Education// (lower left). 4. Browse and click on a podcast of interest. 5. Listen to and subscribe to "episodes" in the bottom pane. Only one episode will be downloaded. OR Listen to and episode and subscribe to the entire podcast by clicking "Subscribe" in the top pane. 6. Listen to it on your computer using //iTunes.//

In this workshop we will talk about audio recordings posted to the Internet that are one-time postings and not syndicated as a podcast. You can download and listen to them using a computer.

**Classroom use:** Have students create audio recordings for reports, book reviews, interviews, tutorials teaching someone else a concept they have learned, songs, raps, poetry reading, language practice. Students are likely to put in a lot of practice on something that a wide audience will hear. Post the files where others can hear the work: to shared network folders, your web page, your wiki (there may be some size limits), classroom computers, etc.

[|Audacity] is a free, cross-platform software to download, install, and use from a computer to record and edit audio. You can record speech, and even add music interludes to the presentation using Audacity software. If you want the files to play easily, convert them to mp3 files in Audacity. To do this, you must download the [|lame] encoder. It works with Audacity. See the directions on the download page.