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odcasting

Podcasting 101

By Bob Pauley, Director of Technology

Lantana Community Middle School (LCMS)

pauley@palmbeach.k12.fl.us

“Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.” Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, St. Petersburg, FL

Textbook: iLife ’08 by Michael Rubin (suggested, not required)

Lesson 1: Read pp. 330-369 in the textbook: Creating Unique Music for your Projects

Definitions & Biographical Information You won’t find podcasting in your standard Webster’s Dictionary; it’s too new a term. For new words we use the new online dictionary, Wikipedia. Go to Google.com and enter Wikipedia’s Creator. Find out what you can about this entry. Podcasting is the method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio or video programs, over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. The term, coined in 2004, combines "iPod", a popular portable audio device, and "broadcasting."

A hyperlink (or link), usually blue and underlined, is a reference in a document to another section of that document, another document, or to a website, that automatically brings that information onto the computer screen when it is selected by the user.

Multimedia (also called Rich media) is media that uses multiple forms of information content and information processing (e.g. text, audio, graphics, animation, video, interactivity) to inform or entertain the (user) audience. “Wiki wiki" means "quick" or "hurry" in Hawai'ian, and also refers to a type of fish native to the islands. A wiki (WICK-ee> or <WEE-kee>) is a type of website that allows visitors to quickly

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and easily add, remove, or otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration. http://www.wikipedia.org – The URL for this new dictionary and encyclopedia we will use for definitions and biographical information.

Hyperlinks are part of the foundation of the World Wide Web created by Tim Berners-Lee, but are not limited to HTML or the web. Hyperlinks may be used in almost any electronic media.

The World Wide Web ("WWW" or simply the "Web") is a global information space. Text documents, images and multimedia are identified by short, unique, global identifiers called Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) so that each can be found. Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a method used to transfer or convey information on the World Wide Web. Its original purpose was to provide a way to publish and retrieve HTML pages. In computing, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a markup language designed for the creation of web pages with hypertext and other information to be displayed in a web browser. The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a W3C-recommended general-purpose markup language for creating special-purpose markup languages, capable of describing many different kinds of data. Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of data across different systems, particularly systems connected via the Internet. W3C – The World Wide Web Consortium… (See Wikipedia). Radio UserLand – The first podcasts… (See Wikipedia). Tim Berners-Lee – Creator of The World Wide Web (See Wikipedia). Dave Winer – Creator of RSS syndication feeds (See Wikipedia). …all born in 1955. Steve Jobs – Apple founder; lowest-paid CEO in U.S. (See Wikipedia). Reality distortion field (RDF) is the idea that Steve Jobs is able to convince people to believe almost anything with a skillful mix of charm, charisma, slight exaggeration, and clever marketing. Your Assignment:

1. Go to wikipedia.org and enter the above listed terms and persons 2. Learn to use Wikipedia by exploring its contents 3. Make a list of at least 3 subjects of interest for podcasting

When finished, please proceed to Lesson 2. Lesson 2: Read pp. 330-369 in the textbook: Producing Your First Podcast

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Why Podcast? Podcasting is a way of expressing yourself. Just as you might want to write a poem or a song, craft a screenplay, write a book – the reasons are many and varied. If you have a business it could make good business sense to post podcasts centered on the type of business you have. Where to Podcast: The favorite spot for posting podcasts is on iTunes. Yahoo offers free podcasting space, as do many web browsers. Specialized podcasts may be posted on websites found in Google on the particular subject of your posting. For example, I might enter “Middle School Math Podcast” in a Google search. The Length of a Podcast: A bird chirp may last but a fraction of a second and a dissertation on a revolutionary brain surgery technique could take hours. The typical podcast is normally about 1 to 3 minutes. For our Purposes:

A computer with online capability is required – An Apple computer works best since Apple is a pioneer in podcasting, but any PC will do.

The Apple Computer software program iTunes should be downloaded. It works

on any PC or iMac computer, and is the podcast posting location of choice.

Choose an item of interest and create a short audio podcast. We’ll make one in class on Apple’s Quicktime software as an example.

For a quick demonstration we’ll use GarageBand, an Apple Computer software

program.

Upon completion, we’ll post the podcast onto iTunes under the appropriate heading.

Let’s check out some posted podcasts. We’ll open iTunes, click on Music Store>

Podcasts and choose a subject. These are 90 second samples; if we like what we see and/or hear we click the Get Episode button to download the entire episode into our personal iTunes Podcast library.

If we like the subject matter of the podcast we may click on the Subscribe button to

automatically download future episodes. Be aware of the large amount of memory required, especially in video, as it can quickly use all your available bytes. Click on a downloaded podcast>File>Get info to determine the size of a particular podcast.

If we have prepared a podcast for posting we click on the Submit a Podcast button to

post it. We will need the URL address where our podcast is stored online in order to upload the podcast into iTunes. How to Podcast:

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1. Open GarageBand on any iMac computer. It is part of the iLife ’06 software

package that comes standard on Apple computers. The iLife software includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb and GarageBand.

2. Click New Podcast Episode (Choose File>New if necessary to get to the right

window).

3. Name your podcast “Podcast 1,” choose a location to save it (I’ll use Desktop for now to keep it handy) and click Create.

4. Notice the Podcast Track in purple, followed by four additional tracks: Male

Voice, Female Voice, Jingles and Radio Sounds. The Media Browser should be visible on the right. Click the View /Hide the Media Browser button to the right of the encircled “i” button if necessary to open it.

5. The area below the counter is the Editor, a place to fine-tune and assign chapter

titles and links. From the Photo file on the right choose a picture. Click and drag it to the “Episode Artwork” box on the lower left portion of your screen.

6. Choose Control>Hide Editor now in the upper menu bar to make more space

available.

7. Prepare a script if you have one to record as your first podcast. If you know a poem, a song or have something to say, have it written out or otherwise ready to record. If you need a script I’ll lend you a verse to my rap song, The Signifying

Monkey. Recited briskly it should take you about 25 to 30 seconds: “Well, gather ‘round, boys and girls, I’m gonna tell you why

You ought to know about this here monkey, the one that signifies He’ll look you dead in the eye, and tell you one of the biggest, baddest, bold-

faced lies

N’ have the brothers turn against you, make the sisters want to cry, cry, cry …Now, did you ever hear a monkey signify

…I say, did you ever hear a monkey signify?

Lean your ear over here for just a minute, gonna tell you ‘bout the jungle and a certain monkey in it…”

8. Select the track you will be recording on, by choosing “Male Voice” or “Female

Voice” and clicking on it. Familiarize yourself with the “Record,” “Start/Stop,” “Go to the beginning” buttons at the bottom of the window, and the “Playhead Arrow” and how it can be manipulated in the gray area at the top of the window.

9. The Spacebar will stop the recording or playback sequences for your convenience.

You don’t have to record all in one continuous narration. When you’re ready, click on the Record button and begin; click the Start/Stop button to stop. Click the Go to the beginning button to return the Playhead to its point of beginning. Be

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aware we could also do this in the iMovie program if we required more complex editing in our podcast.

10. Into the Podcast Track at the top of the screen, drag four or five pictures and

space them evenly, a few seconds each, by dragging them from their ends. Podcasts with pictures are called Enhanced Podcasts. Note if there is time left at the end the picture we inserted in the Editor in Step 5 will display.

11. Click the View/Hide the Track Info button (the “i”) and play the track to watch

your pictures display in sequence as your narration plays.

12. Click on the View/Hide the Loop Browser button at the left (the eye icon), and select Jingles>Rock/Blues>Torn Jeans Long (or the music of your choice) for background music. Drag your selection up toward the timeline area of a track and insert it, making sure it’s longer in duration than your narration..

13. If it’s considerably longer (say 10 seconds more) than the narration, move the

Playhead to the desired end and click Edit>Split, then select just the overage portion and click the Delete button.

14. Select the music track, locate and click the Show track volume or pan curve

“down” arrow over on the left side beneath the track name. It will become an “up” arrow and open a volume track below it.

15. Move the Playhead to three or four seconds before the end of the music track, and

click on the volume line. A blue dot should appear. Do the same at the end of the music track and a second blue dot will appear. Drag that dot down to a zero-volume level so the sound of the music will taper gradually, rather than abruptly.

16. Repeat any of the above steps as many times as is necessary until you have the

right mix of narration, background music and photographic display. Play the podcast with the “i” button clicked to view and hear the finished product.

[Steps 12-15 may be replaced by clicking the View/Hide the Media Browser

button>Audio>GarageBand Demo Songs>Click and Drag Half Dome into the timeline area for simplicity if desired]

Had we stopped at Step 8 and forgot about the pictures and the background music, we

would have had a simple audio podcast. For some, that would have been quite enough. Thousands podcast audio only every day and there’s nothing wrong with that. For the purposes of this class, however, we want to cover all the possibilities of all things digital.

This means, we will consider all possible ways a podcast can be created and posted:

Audio, text only, musical, tabular, graphical, animated, with video background or any combination of media. We use the term multimedia to include all of these options.

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What is Multimedia? Wikipedia has a dictionary called Wiktionary that we use for quick online definitions

of words. Wikipedia is always free, always available. It is generally accepted and highly accurate, though it is written by its readers. For more information go to wikipedia.com.

multi- A prefix. Resembling, pertaining to many or many things.

media (plural of medium) A noun. Formats for presenting information.

multimedia pl A noun. The use of different media to convey information; text together with audio, graphics and animation, often packaged on CD-ROM with links to the Internet

Multimedia was the big techno-word a couple of years back. It has been used to describe many things relating to information input into the computer. I belong to the Multimedia Academy at the School District of Palm Beach County. Generally speaking, multimedia to us means anything to do with the frontend of a computer, i.e. the computer software and related input.

We plug many things into the computer, such as our Internet cables, routers, wireless hubs, monitors, keyboards, mice, Bluetooth dongles, LCD projectors, scanners, speakers, microphones, headphones, printers, interactive tablets, document cameras, external harddrives, flash drives, DVD comvertors, TVs, iPods, digicams, digital still cameras, videocameras and more. If there is a gadget out there related to technology, it is our job to know about it.

We use firewire connectors, USB ports, VGA connectors, speaker outlets and phone line hookups. Dialup Internet lines are called RJ-11 and carry an analog signal. Ethernet connectors (RJ-45) carry a digital signal, usually with fiberobtic cord pairs. As a rule we do not open the desire to change components inside, nor try and repair damaged computers.

It is the aim of the School District to maintain new computers, replacing them every 2 years. According to Moore’s Law (Gordon E. Moore is a co-founder of Intel) computer harddrive memory and downloading rates (or processing power) doubles about every 18 months. If we have computers that are four or five years old they are archaic when placed alongside newer ones. The demand for bandwidth is ever increasing due to consumer communication, music and video demands.

School assignments within the District and beyond are just now including podcasts and video manipulation, with sounds, editing, full movie documentaries and the like. These requirements call for an enormous amount of bandwidth just for student demands within the classrooms.

Lesson 4:

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When we podcast information, it may be in many forms, from very plain and simple to extremely fancy and demanding. Examples are:

Text o Story, general information o Poetry, lyrics, etc.

Enhanced text o Color variation o Font variation o Text size

Graphics o Leadsheets, charts o Bar graphs, pie charts, tables, etc. (i.e. Excel) o Concept mapping (i.e. Inspiration) o Artwork o Scanned data (magazine articles, newspapers, etc.)

Photography o Digital still o Digital video o Enhanced video (with sound) o Slideshows, presentations (i.e. PowerPoint)

Sounds o Audio, dialogue, narrative o Live music and presentations o Music (i.e. GarageBand) o Bird calls, animal sounds o Sound effects and alerts

Macromedia o Computer animation o Graphic editing software o Photo editing software o Website design

Online o Downloaded files o Hyperlinked data o Simple HTML

Blogs o RSS feeds o Compound blogs o Metadata, XML

Peripheral o Commercial movies o Television data o HDTV broadcasts o Commercial music o External CD & DVD data

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My Audio Podcast: Open iTunes (see Lesson 2, p. 3); Compare ABC News, CNN, etc.

A Sizzling Success Story ! by Bob Pauley !

Principal’s Leadership Conference

Welcome, distinguished educators; principals; leaders! Dr. Johnson asked me to speak to you today about venturing outside the box. He would have us become great spokesmen, great spokeswomen, great leaders; that’s why I am here: To unleash the

silent leadership in this audience. There are many, many, many more of you than you realize, and you must come to recognize the leader within you. Let’s take our act from good to great!

Up spake the salty sailor – he had sailed the seven seas I pray thee, put into yonder pirate’s port – for there’s mention of a mutiny Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with a dash of Bob Pauley

Now hear the bells, the loud alarm bells, and hear them well Those brazen bells Oh, what a tragic tale of terror, their turbulency tells

Edgar Allen Poe, with a splash of Bob Pauley

Bring alliteration into your presentations, it adds pizzazz! Now my wife says “Whoa, Nellie” whenever she encounters something out of the

ordinary. Everybody, say “Whoa, Nellie! One more time: “Whoa, Nellie!” Those are examples of alliteration – don’t you know – 100 years of alliteration – from

Longfellow and Poe. I have come to make your life a sizzling success story – that’s alliteration. Alliteration works well in speeches. These are things I learned from Toastmasters. Conundrum: A riddle in which a fanciful question is answered by a pun. The cardinal conundrum: If a situation arises that requires your complete and undivided

attention, it will occur simultaneously with a compelling distraction. Conundrums add pizzazz to your presentations.

Did you know that about 93% of what I say today that you retain will be not because

of the words I speak but because of the style and the manner in which I speak them, the attitude and the enthusiasm, the facial expressions and the vocal variety, the hand gestures and the body language as these words depart my lips and flitter out into the audience. Even the way I dress.

If we seek self-improvement success will spring up around us, dynamic speakers and

great leaders will appear, as wildflowers along a Carolina highway. That’s a metaphor. Metaphors are good in speeches. Do you use crutch words when you speak? Ahs, ums, you-knows?

Don’t!

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Plan your work; work your plan, then practice, practice, practice. I have an acrostic for you (as opposed to an acronym) – a mnemonic device, a special arrangement of words that spell out another word. These are some of the things that you might encounter along the road to your sizzling success. To be the best that you can be, write out your goals, when and how you will accomplish them – update them regularly and be specific – then GO for them with a passion. But where do we begin? How do we proceed? Here’s my formula. Organization is the first step. Today we can do that with iBooks, flash drives, Blackberries, cell phones – technological mnemonics, memory-enhancing devices. Become organized! As far as the human mind has ever been, that’s where I would seek to travel – and I can do that with my scholastic goals. Remember, education is a lifelong learning experience. Say “Whoa, Nellie!” Seven Secrets to Success, no-brainers that go together, would have us be a scholar, a leader, a manager, a planner, a presenter, an evaluator and a true and sincere friend to those with whom you come in contact. Apply these attributes to your life. Add to that: Truth and Justice – Always stand up for what’s right. Innovation – Be creative; think outside the box. Technology: Be on the cutting edge, the bleeding edge, of streaming – screaming – technology. Do you know that a byte is eight bits and a bit is either a zero or a one hence the binary system, that a kilobyte is 210 or 1,024 bytes? From bits and bytes come pixels that open up a whole new world for us: The wondrous world of digital technology. A megabyte is 220, a gigabyte 230, a terabyte 240, a petabyte 250, and then comes zettabytes and yottabytes and our world is fast approaching them. Bringing this technology into the classrooms is crucial. Make bold statements:

Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; up, up, up I have soared into the wild, delirious burning blue, reached out my hand and touched the face of God! John Gillespie Magee, Jr., 1941

Everybody say: “Whoa, Nellie!” Master the grand piano, the guitar or other musical instrument. Write a poem, paint a canvas, compose a song or a short book. Enhance your life with an intellectual pastime. Embellish the truth, they tell me, and it will come to pass! I urge you to visit a Barnes & Noble bookstore and check out The Secrets of Babylon.

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Allow thy purse to fatten. One should tithe oneself ten percent of one’s earnings – the first secret of Babylon. Cheerful people earn more and nothing makes you more cheerful than financial security. Secrets of Babylon, the book, was published in 1926. Its seven timeless secrets pave the way to your financial security. Read it! The dress code: One of today’s most overlooked secrets of success is to dress in sartorial splendor. Be a sharp dresser. Time, for oneself, is important also – as in a modicum of relaxation and recreation. Eat live, natural cuisine: Avoid animal-based, pasteurized, homogenized, artificially flavored, colored, canned, preserved, irradiated or otherwise manipulated foods. Raw

fruits and vegetables are best. Regularly exercise: If your daily travels include less than three miles of walking, running or strenuous activity, supplement that on a treadmill or a walk in the park. It’s invigorating. Soar to unimaginable heights by standing on the shoulders of giants, by being a dreamer, a bold dreamer. Read about the accomplishments of great men and women throughout history. Emulate them. Dare to be just as great. I say, dare to be just as great! Whoa, Nellie! …And, I would add, become an active member of Toastmasters International, an

essential part of anyone’s sizzling success story. Go for it and tomorrow is yours – with

super, sizzling success!

This is your pathway from good to great! And now, ladies and gentlemen: May I present

to you the Superintendent of the School District of Palm Beach County, Dr. Art

Johnson…

Publishing A Podcast: Read pp. 383-391 in iLife ’06: Publishing Your Podcast

This procedure will publish your podcast for all the world to see. Make sure it’s what you want in its final version, with all its additions and corrections, before you publish.

1. From Lesson 2, Pages 4 and 5, create your podcast in Apple’s GarageBand. 2. Choose carefully, thoughtfully, for a creative title as it will be broadcast in

many ways in many locations worldwide.

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3. Choose Share > Send podcast to iWeb. Downloading includes creating chapters, mixdown , converting and exporting the file, so it takes a moment.

4. If a Podcast page within your chosen website has been created, the podcast

should be listed on that page in the iWeb site.

5. The iWeb website editing software will open, with a window asking for you to choose the location in which the podcast is to be located. Choose Podcasting.

6. The iWeb connection enables editing of text, titles and images onto your

website. In the computer lab that connection is for Mr. Pauley’s Website at http://web.mac.com/bobpauley.

7. At this point you have the opportunity to edit the name of the podcast and to

type a paragraph of information. The first sentence or line determines the title that will be listed in the heading. Additional information is optional.

8. Your podcast will be entered in three locations. Become familiar with these:

a. Podcasting (the main heading) b. Entries (a subheading) c. Archive (also a subheading)

9. The entry level for the podcast is Entries. Here you may edit the title and enter your information. It will automatically post onto the other two webpage locations.

10. When you are satisfied with the information you have entered, click Publish

in the lower left corner of the window. Publishing takes a moment; do not close iWeb during this process.

11. When the publishing is complete, you are offered three options: 1) Announce,

2) Visit Site Now, or 3) OK. Choose to visit the site now and check out your officially posted podcast.

12. From GarageBand you may post to the iTunes listing of podcasts if you like.

Publishing a Blog:

Web Logs, known as blogs, are quite the rage these days, and you need to know how

to post one onto a website. We treat them a lot like podcasts, but there are a few differences. A standard podcast is either audio, enhanced audio (with images added), or video. But what if your need is to post a MS Word document, or an Excel chart, or a PowerPoint presentation? This is where the blogs and the podcasts differ:

1. If you have a file you wish to blog you may want to save it as a pdf file, for

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added stability. If you use a Mac, click Print>PDF>Save as a PDF file and it will automatically be converted into pdf format.

2. Open iDisk to reveal the Documents folder, and drag your desired blog into it.

3. Open iWeb (web edit site) in the Mac’s Dock.and navigate to the Blog page.

4. Click on Entries>Add Entry. Right-click (Ctrl-click on a Mac) on the title at

the top of the page and click Rename if desired. You may call it what you like. Always be creative when providing titles for blogs or podcasts.

5. Locate the text box just below the Entry bar and type in the title first, followed

by 1-4 lines of information that best describes the contents of your blog.

6. Highlight the title portion of the entry, click Insert>Hyperlink>File.

7. In the window that appears, browse iDisk>Documents and locate the file you wish to blog and click Open.

8. Click Enable as a Hyperlink in the Inspector (the lowercase i in the lower

right part of your screen) window. Close the Inspector Link.

9. Your title should appear as a Hyperlink now. There are three windows for every blog (just as there is in podcasting), become familiar with them :

a. The Blog page (the main heading) b. Entries (a subheading) c. Archive (also a subheading)

10. When you are satisfied with the information you have entered, click Publish

in the lower left corner of the window. Publishing takes a moment; do not close iWeb during this process.

11. When the publishing is complete, you are offered three options: 1) Announce,

2) Visit Site Now, or 3) OK. Choose to visit the site now and check out your officially posted podcast.