Distributing your podcast for e-learning

I've just about completed all the topics I want to cover regarding Podcasting for E-Learning (for the moment). It's time to move on to other learning and development-related subjects. So, over the next couple of days, I want to tie up some podcasting 'loose ends.'

Now read on…

Today, publishing your podcast. As Jack Herrington (2005) so memorably wrote, podcasting is "blogging out loud." If you've created and posted a blog, you've already used pretty much all the technology required to distribute a podcast. In essence, a podcast is just a media file (usually MP3 audio, but you may also use m4a, .mov, .mp4, .m4v, and .pdf file types), and the RSS 2.0 web feed format which is used to publish frequently updated works like podcasts and blogs.

An RSS document (usually called a "feed") includes full or summarized text and metadata such as publishing dates. Web feeds enable publishers syndicate content automatically, and they allow subscribers access updates from individual websites or aggregated from many sites. The standardized XML file format allows the feed information to be published once and viewed by many different applications.

There are many ways to create a podcast RSS feed, but I recommend the free-to-use PodcastBlaster service (see Figure 1) if you're new to podcasting and don't feel up to hand-crafting the code.

Figure 1. PodcastBlaster RSS Feed Generator
[Click to Enlarge]

The most common way to distribute a podcast is via a blogging service, or by using specialized software provided by your ISP. Refer to your hosting provider for specifics on the system they - and by extension you – should use.

New Podcast Episode: Django Reinhardt and the Sound of Swing

The great jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt was born in France in 1910.

The son of Gypsy parents, he grew up in a Manouche camp on the outskirts of Paris during the Great War. Django grew up in the world of the bohemian and the vagabond on the doorstep of a great city and it was here that he first learned to play the guitar.

This 15-minute podcast documentary follows the career of one of the great innovators in the guitar, through the 'Roaring Twenties,' the accident that nearly ruined his careers, his discovery of Jazz, and the emergence of the Swing style, epitomized in his work with the Stephane Grapelli and The Quintet of the Hot Club of France.

Click here to listen to the podcast (MP3, 13.5MB).

Click here to view the transcript (PDF, 81k).

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References:

Herrington, J. D. (2005). Podcasting hacks: tips & tools for blogging out loud. O’Reilly Media, Inc.

PodcastBlaster Internet: Available from: http://www.podcastblaster.com Accessed 20 September 2009 (Registration Required)

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A Podcast Service for the E-Learning Curve Blog

I'm delighted to launch a content delivery channel I've been researching and developing for a while: a podcast for the E-Learning Curve Blog.

First a little about podcasting...

A podcast is one in a series of digital media files (usually in either audio MP3 or video M4V format) that is released periodically and made available for download by means of web syndication.

This syndication aspect of the content delivery is what differentiates podcasts from other ways of accessing files, such as simple download or streaming. Special client software applications called RSS aggregators (also known colloquially as podcatchers) such as Apple iTunes or Nullsoft Winamp can automatically identify and retrieve new podcast files in a given series when they are made available, by accessing a centrally-maintained 'feed' that lists all files currently associated with that particular series.

New files can be downloaded automatically by the podcatcher and stored locally on the user's computer or other media device for offline use, enabling the audience to download content that is released episodically without having to manually check that new material has been made available.

According to the Horizon Report (2006) podcasting is

At the leading edge of a wave that will last for the next several years and beyond, personal broadcasting takes advantage of small, easy-to-use devices that people already carry to capture and share personal experiences, information, and events. This trend, which has roots in text-based media (personal websites and blogs), is expanding to include audio and video, as the tools for capturing and sharing those media become smaller and better. From podcasting to video blogging (vlogging), personal broadcasting is an increasingly popular trend that is impacting... audiences.

(p.11)

It's easy to see why podcasts have value in e-learning. Will Richardson states in Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms that the

underlying technology here is digital recording and the idea that it is now very easy to create and publish these recordings... As long as you have a way to make the recording, and as as long as your students have access to the Internet, you can make this work.

(p.113)

Now that I have started publishing podcasts, I'm obviously going to write a series of articles about developing and delivering content using this learning channel. What's more, I will discuss podcast authoring using production techniques, based upon my experiences as a radio documentary maker in a 'previous life' - I'll be talking about the craft of writing for audio, as well as the technical aspects of the process.

Now, [drum roll] I want to introduce you to the E-Learning Curve's Other Podcast. This podcast service is about subjects that interest me other than e-learning. Topics I'll be covering include aviation, history and music, among others. The first set of podcasts is called Transatlantic: the Flying Boats of Foynes:

July 2009 is the 70th anniversary of the first scheduled trans-Atlantic airplane passenger service. Told against a backdrop of the momentous events of World War Two, this eight-part podcast documentary series by Michael Hanley tells the story of a unique era in world aviation.

Airlines like Pan American Airways (PAA) and the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) with their flying boats like the Short series of planes, and the massive Boeing 314 'Clippers' were welcomed to the seaport of Foynes, in the embrace of the River Shannon estuary on the Western edge of Europe. Come with me now as we fly back in time to the Golden Age of Aviation, a era of adventure, conflict - and the invention of Irish Coffee.

Parts 1 and 2 of the series are now available. You can listen and subscribe to each episode here, or you can access the podcast via iTunes. The next installment, The Glamour of Travel will be released on Tuesday July 28th, 2009.

The more observant among you will have noticed that this podcast channel is called the Other Podcast, which implies that there is a regular E-Learning Curve Podcast, discussing subjects associated with learning and development.

Yes there is. And it’s on it’s way soon. More about this closer to its launch.
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References:

The New Media Consortium (2006). 2006 Horizon Report. [Internet] Available from: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2006_Horizon_Report.pdf Accessed 15 July 2009

Richardson, W. (2006) Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

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The Winter Solstice at Newgrange - watch it live on the Web

5,000 years ago, an extraordinary people lived in Ireland. They were farmers, hunters and builders. Without the benefit of the wheel, and with tools made only of flint, they carved their culture into history. Along the banks of the River Boyne, they built houses to their dead, repositories to their spirit - monuments to immortality.

Brú na Boinne: Monument to Immortality

I don't spend all my time involved in learning and development.

No, no, no.

Among my more arcane, but nevertheless very satisfying interests is in the culture of the Neolithic (New Stone Age), and particularly the culture of the Beaker People of Western Europe. An event central to the lives of the people of this culture in Ireland (which resonates with us today) occurs this Sunday, 21st December on the Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere.

At ten minutes to nine on the morning of the shortest day of the year, a pale and weak sun slowly rises above a ridge in the Boyne River valley. As its rays penetrate the dawn mist, a solitary building sits atop it hill... waiting. Waiting as it has every year for over fifty centuries to shine once again as a beacon to the Spirit Of Man - a place where people forever bound to the earth can, however briefly, capture the Fire of the Sun and touch the sky.

Newgrange is best known for the illumination of its passage and chamber by the winter solstice sun. Above the entrance to the passage at Newgrange there is a opening called a roof-box. Its purpose is to allow sunlight to penetrate the chamber on the shortest days of the year, around December 21, the Winter Solstice.

At dawn, from December 19th to 23rd, a narrow beam of light penetrates the roof-box and reaches the floor of the chamber, gradually extending to the rear of the passage. As the sun rises higher, the beam widens within the chamber so that the whole room becomes dramatically illuminated. This event lasts for 17 minutes, beginning around 9am.

Newgrange's accuracy as a time-telling device is all the more remarkable when you think that it was built 500 years before the Great Pyramids in Giza, and more than 1,000 years before Stonehenge.

Thanks to the Irish Office of Public Works (OPW) and facilitated by the good people at Servecast (yo! Julian, Declan, & Sinead!) you will have the opportunity to view this event live online on the morning of 21st December.