About Podcasting

First you need to have a mic and speakers for your computer.

Next you need some software to record the audio. I like Audacity for two reasons:
(1) It's free.
(2) It will work on ANY computer; mac, pc, linux, you name it.

Now you'll want to know how to use Audacity. Watch this screencast to learn how.

When you create your podcast you'll want to "export" the file as an mp3 file. To do that you need a little "LAME" (free) file that will allow Audacity to create the mp3 file.

(click on the image)

(The links above don't work. Type them into your browser and they will.)

Guidelines for Producing a Podcast
(1) Plan it out. Don't say, "uh...um..."



(2) Keep it short and to the point. The shorter it is the more other people will listen to it. You will LOVE listening to yourself for hours, others will feel differently about it. 5 minutes or less is good for a start. If you want to do something longer plan, Plan, PLAN and keep it engaging!

(3) When you're finished recording, play it back, listen to it, edit out the parts you don't like. If you want to use music, as an introduction, at the end or to create ambience, you CANNOT use commercial songs. The best solution is to record a song you made up on the guitar, piano or whatever instrument you or a friend play. Talk to me about this if you're not sure what I mean BEFORE you publish your podcast to the blog.

(4) If you talk about any information that can be found on websites, leave a list of links to those sites in "The Shownotes" for your podcast. (i.e. post the links list on the blog post that you publish your podcast on.)

(5) A step-by-step guide to creating podcasts can be found here.

Have Fun With This!