Podcasting in Education - Video Podcasts

EME5050 - ABC, Week 7

In my post last week, I shared how podcast training in my district (the School District of Clay County, Florida) has been streamlined. This training is still open to any employee in our district who would like to start using podcasting to help support and enhance what they do in their jobs. Below are the three different podcasting courses we are now offering:



• Podcasting in Blackboard

• Podcasting in Education – Audio Podcasts

• Podcasting in Education – Video Podcasts


Once the participant successfully completes a specific course, he/she will be ready to start using that particular type of educational podcasting in his/her job. For example, once the Podcasting in Blackboard training has been completed, the participant will be ready to start creating and posting podcasts in Blackboard Learn (our district's online learning management system). These podcasts will be created using Voice Podcaster which is offered through Wimba. Once a podcast is posted in Blackboard, listeners can subscribe to it us an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed (more about that in a minute).


Today’s post will focus on the last of the three different podcast courses we are offering. It is called Podcasting in Education – Video Podcasts. Just as the Podcasting in Education – Audio Podcasts training course does, this course follow the four basic steps all podcasters need to follow. They are: Plan, Produce, Publish, and Promote. A difference that needs to be pointed out at this time is how an audio podcast is different from a video podcast. By definition, “a podcast (or non-streamed webcast) is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication,” (“Podcast,” 2011). Notice that this was the definition of the word podcast. Now let’s define a video podcast. A “video podcast (sometimes shortened to vodcast) is a term used for the online delivery of video on demand video clip content via Atom or RSS enclosures,” (“Video podcast,” 2011). Notice here that a video podcast involves video of some sort. Now you should be able to see that the difference between an audio podcast and a video podcast is that audio podcasts only contain audio while video podcasts usually contain audio and video.


There is also a difference when it comes to the types of software that are used to create an audio podcast versus a video podcast. As I pointed out in last week’s post, in our district podcast training we use Audacity and LAME Encoder to create our audio podcasts. The participants first use Audacity to record and edit their audio files. Then when they are ready to become audio podcasts, they export their audio files as MP3 files (with the assistance of LAME Encoder). For creating vodcasts, we train participants to use either Windows Movie Maker (for Windows computers) or iMovie (for Apple computers). There are many different options for incorporating video into a video podcast. Our training participants may choose to insert still digital images or they can actually use a digital video camera to capture video to use. In addition, they may also choose to use Camtasia Studio to produce a screencast that can then be used in their video podcasts. As I mentioned, there are lots of different options when it comes to creating vodcasts and our training participants have been very creative so far. One actually chose to use Photo Story 3 to create her vodcast. During this training, the participants learn that each vodcast starts out as a video file and then the finished format must be MP4 for it to be an actual video podcast.


Once a vodcast is an MP4, it needs to be published. At this time, our district is using Internet Archive to store our podcasts and that makes them easily accessible when it comes time to promote them with listeners. Our training participants create a blog that is specifically used to showcase the podcasts they create during and after this particular training. These blogs are created in Blogger which is Google’s free online tool for creating blogs. The participants learn how to embed their vodcasts within the contents of a post in their blogs. As I mentioned in last week’s post, Blogger is programmed to include RSS (Really Simple Syndication) which is “a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updates works – such as a blog,” (“RSS,” 2011). In this way, the podcasters are able to share their new podcasts as they are created.


This has been a brief overview of the new Podcasting in Education – Video Podcasts training that we are now offering in Clay County. If you are an employee in the School District of Clay County, Florida and you would like to learn how to start creating educational podcasts to use in your job, please contact me at rpaine@mail.clay.k12.fl.us and I will be glad to assist you. If you have any specific questions that were not answered in this post, please make sure to send me an email and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

References:

Podcast.  (2011).  In Wikipedia.  Retrieved March 1, 2011 from
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast

RSS.  (2011).  In Wikipedia.  Retrieved March 1, 2011 from
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS

Video podcast.  (2011).  In Wikipedia.  Retrieved March 1, 2011 from
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_podcast