Thoughts on Podcasting

Podcasting is a challenge, not so much from the technical side, but rather from the presentation side. Once I got familiar with Audacity and Podbean and made sure I had the proper microphone set up, making the actual podcasts was relatively easy.

The challenge came in preparing the podcasts. First I had to find a relevant topic. This was problematic for me as the course I was planning to teach on-line has been cancelled. I finally decided to create podcasts for the in-classroom version of the course. Once that hurdle was jumped, I spent hours writing and editing scripts for the podcasts. Then came the hard part, making the recordings not sound like a robot was talking. I tend to speak in a monotone, so it took several attempts per podcast to create one that was okay. Perseverance paid off.

One of the things I learned was that making a good podcast isn't easy. It takes a lot of planning and rehearsing to produce a podcast that sounds somewhat professional.

Suzanne's podcasts definitely sounded professional. She is very well-spoken and her voice is natural and well-modulated. The information presented is very informative and her instructions are clearly stated. I also liked the way she linked Podbean to her blog. It made finding her podcasts very easy. The only problem I found was that I had a hard time turning off the music that automatically starts playing when you access her blog. For a couple of minutes, I was listening to her podcasts with music playing over them. Then I finally figured out how to turn off the music. My only suggestion for improvement is to give someone the option of listening to the music when one accesses her blog.

Mario's podcasts were very well organized. In each podcast, he introduced himself and the topic that he would be covering. In podcast two, he summarized what he covered in podcast one and told how it related to what he was covering. He did the same in podcast three. He was well-spoken and delivered some good information. The one problem I had with his podcasts was background noise. He needs to find out what is causing it and prevent it from happening in future podcasts.

Kelly's podcasts were also very good. She is well-spoken and knows how to use voice inflections. Her instructions were clearly stated and would be easy for someone to follow.

Well, it's getting late and I need to get my beauty sleep. ;)