Podcasting for Educators: A Tutorial

So, it's the end of October?! Wow, how time flies. It seems not so long ago that it was the first day of school. With the ending of the month, I decided to take a little stock in what I had accomplished in the first two months of school. When I did this I realized that the three teachers who have their students podcasting their classrooms' newsletters have been doing so for about a month now. They have been sending their students down to my office where I record them, edit their performances, put the tracks together, and then upload them to their Gcast accounts.

I thought to myself, "If I am going to take another classroom per grade level on this podcasting adventure, I need to get the three teachers who are currently podcasting trained on how to do this on their own. I thought that I should put together a tutorial webpage (which could also be printed out) for teachers to use, which has step-by-step instructions, links to resources, and plenty of screenshots. So, I created just such a webpage. I also included some audio files so that viewers could also hear the differences in audio files after specific steps in the process. Eventually, (when I get a copy of SnapZ Pro X) I will add some tutorial videos as well.

Podcasting can be a great experience for students and provides them with another publishing genre that can also provide a world-wide audience, giving students greater purpose for their work. Teachers may not jump into podcasting with their students if they are unsure on the "how to's" so I am hoping that this tutorial page will help those well beyond my own district. I know that, for me, I struggled with podcasting, not with the "why" but on the "how". I would have embraced the tutorial that would have gotten me going on this. Now that I know the "how" I want to share it will all that have an interest or is in search of help.