By Bernardita Vanegas and María Cecilia González

 

 

INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY

 

    In the 1980's music and radio related software were provided by RSC (Radio Computing Services) in a digital format. Mbone, the known name for the midi format was used to distribute audio and video files before online distribution. It was used mainly, due educational purposes.

 

     Internet Talk Radio, the first computer radio talk show, was launched in 1993, by Carl Malamud, but being able to download music didn't reach the main stream until the the advent of Napster, another system for adding music, but without suscription services. 

     On September, 2000, i2Go launched the first system for the selection downloading and storage of episodic audio on PCs and portable devices. MyAudio2Go.com was a digital audio service that supplied music and entertainment as content for portable MP3 players. 

 

     On October 2000, Dave Winter introduced the use of the RSS format for audio blogging. Presenting also a new element called enclosure, in order to pass the address of a media aggregator. 

 

     The extremely famous and successful IPod, launched on October 23, 2001, quickly became the standard when it came to portable music and thereafter, video devices. Apple developed it considering existing digital music players "big and clunky or small and useless" with user interfaces that were "unbelievably awful". 

 

     Podcasting was a term suggested, by Ben Hammersley in The Guardian, for Portable Listening to Audio Blogs. Deriving from the term broadcasting, Podcasting stands for Personal On Demand Casting, referring to its facility to take digital audio and video data in a portable device.  

 

    On June, 2005, Apple added Podcasting to its iTunes 4.9 music software, also building a directory of podcasts iTunes Music Store.

 

    The Oxford Dictionary has included the term podcasting after its widespread use.

 

 

 

What Podcasting looks like:

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

      Actually, eye-sight is not able to see podcasting transmition waves. However, what our eyes can see is just Fabulous! and they are the Podcasting reproducers, they do not only look great, but are computers, GPS, desktop devices, photo-cameras, video-cameras, albums, directies, audio reproducers, and they even make us make us feel good with all the entertainment we can access from them, those amazing games and all the gatgets that are available for our convenience.

 

What is iTunes:

iTunes. Is not only an application for Mac and PCs, but it is free and easy  to download. iTunes is a directory that allows to download podcasts, as simple as clicking on the URL of the audio file we want to have, go to Advanced menu on the top bar in iTunes, select "Suscribe to Podcast", paste the URL on the displayed box, accept it, and voilá, there it is, on the list located on the left of the screen, there is the Podcast option which will start immediately to download the audio you requested. It will let you know it is working by the movement of an orange circle in motion, next to the name of the site you have chosen. 

 

  

The next step is to go to the website where you are willing to download the audio file from, let's say www.digitalpodcast.com, then you copy the URL corresponding to the file you chose. Then, return to iTunes, go to the Menu bar on top of the window and choose Advanced, display the menu and select the option: "Suscribe to Podcast", then paste the URL in the box. You will see that on the right list from the Podcasts, which in the above picture is already selected, as it will occure automatically during the process you are doing, the automatic system will start downloading the URL audio site, then you will have other options just by clicking on the arrow next to the name of the URL, on its left side, it will display all the audio files included in that site. You will be able to choose if selecting some of them by clicking on "GET", or you could also access to all the files included in that URL just by clicking on GET ALL, which will be next to the URL name, on its right.

 

The downloads are ready to be reproduced on your iTunes, or any other software such as Zune or ZENCast. You could also transfer those downloads to any other MP3 player. Or to other MP4 player for video reproduction. This process is very simple to perform, and it will be according to the instructions every device will present. Basically, these transferring processes are to conect the device to the computer and download the music or video files, as you would do it with any other type of file to a pen-drive, memory-stick, or any other kind of reproducer.

    In the graphic above you are able to see that reproductions are clasified by "albums", you could organize them in the order you prefer. For instance, you want to have a download about international news, you leave them downloading over the night, you take your reproducer to the car on your way to the gym while listening to those news. You arrive to the gym for what you have established a list of music to reproduce for your personal exercises, then you go to work and have these special lounge music to be relaxed and concentrated at work, and finally you have the list of music for tonight's party with the organization iTunes helped you develop. 

 

APPLYING PODCASTING TO ESL LESSONS

 

    For many of you this might be obvious, but we have thought it is really important to allow beginners, intermediate and advanced students to keep practicing listening to activities, in order to be able to understand better to different dialects, expressions, and therefore, to speak and improve pronunciation.

 

    http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/0909/090916-showers.mp3 

 

    This file above belongs to Breaking News English, where you will have access to several activities that are possible besides the listening activity above, for more details go to:

 

     http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/0909/090916-showers.html

 

 

     In this website you will find many other extra activities to reinforce the listening activity and another skills in the learning process. 

 

     If you are a fan of PIXAR animations, I love their animated short stories, I have included one of them here, hope you enjoy it and use it! 

 

    

 

 

YOU CAN CREATE YOUR OWN PODCAST (OR EVEN A RADIO PROGRAM) :

 

    This software application will allow Mac users to record their own sounds and be able to edit them and finally just add them to iTunes, this application saves files in a format that is directly designed to be used with iTunes, files saved this way will be represented by iTunes icon.

 

 

        

 

    As soon as you open the Sound Studio 3, a little box with the information bellow will pop up. You need to have a microphone installed in your computer, or one that could have a USB plug, which will allow you to record sounds. 

 

 

 

    The next step is to start talking, playing music or whatever sound you might like to record. You will see that this system is very sensitive and will save sounds if not in a very professional way, good enough for classes and specially for allowing students to record their own voices and learn to listen to themselves. This will help in getting to be more careful about their pronunciation, and also to make comparisons between their own voice and the native speakers' sounds. Well, when you have opened Sound Studio, you will also see that a second window opens, this will look like this:

 

 

 

    When you are ready, press the red circle to record your sounds. When you finish, just click STOP. And immediately save your document. It will be saved on the desktop with the iTunes icon and will be ready to used right away! Try it! 

    

    If you would like to have a better program, which would allow more possibilities of sounds, such as playing different instruments, and after that being able to edit each one of them individually in order to have a final perfect result Garage Band is a very suitable option, but there are many more to play with! 

 

    podcasting test 2.aiff 

 

 

 

WE HAVE USED SOME OF THE LINKS BELLOW AND HERE ARE SOME OTHERS TO CONSULT TO:

 

Free Technology for Teachers: BBC World News for Children 
TeacherTube - Teach the World | Teacher Videos | Lesson Plan Videos | Student Video Lessons | Online Teacher Made Videos | TeacherTube.com VoiceThread - Group conversations around images, documents, and videos 
Podcasting : Web2practice 
Podomatic training videos | Teacher Training Videos Free on-line training in using technology in teaching 
Audacity training videos | Teacher Training Videos Free on-line training in using technology in teaching 
Creating Lifelong Learners » Blog Archive » Film School for Video Podcasters Podcasts 
animoto - the end of slideshows Vaestro: The Dialogue Driven Network 
Podcasting for E-Learning: Putting it all together | E-Learning Curve Blog 
Podcast: How to… | Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age 
Podcasting: My journey | Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age 
ccMixter - Welcome to ccMixter 
Podcasting in Plain English - Common Craft - Our Product is Explanation 
Six podcasting sites for language learners « Six Things 
MediaShift . Your Guide to Podcasts | PBS 
About The Webcast Academy | The Webcast Academy 
Podcasting in Education | PoducateMe 
Course: Podcasting Basics 
Audacity Manual - Tutorials 
SEGA Tech » Sheer Audacity: Sound Ideas For Learning 
Listening downloads - Central - LearnEnglish - British Council 
Podcasting for ELT (EFL & ESL) 
Around the Corner - MGuhlin.net : Podcasting? 
Odeo: Search, Discover and Share Digital Media from Millions of Audio and Video Clips 
Beginner’s Guide to Podcast Creation | iLounge Article 
Exploiting the educational potential of podcasting 

 

http://hugosite.com/?gclid=CJ7dj62VoJ0CFQtN5QodPw6p1w

http://www.howstuffworks.com/search.php?terms=podcast

http://en.bab.la/news/top-100-language-blogs-2009.html

 

 

http://www.howstuffworks.com/framed.htm?parent=podcasting.htm&url=http://www.apple.com

www.breakingnewsenglish.com

 

 

http://sixthings.net/2009/03/09/six-podcasting-sites-for-language-learners/

 

http://web2practice.jiscinvolve.org/podcasting/

 

www.digitalpodcast.com