Week Nine, Exercise Twenty-one

Last year I was deathly afraid of podcasting-- because I didn't understand it. I felt I was being left in the dust and along with me my students, so I bought Linda Braun's book, Listen Up! Podcasting for Schools and Libraries and began to experiment. I also asked the Computer Club and Book Club to help. Ask and you shall receive. What a great mix of students. The Book Club members that were reluctant to do written book annotations were galvanized. The Computer Club members that were at loose ends because they no longer design and maintain the school's web page were necessary again.It was hard to get a word in edgewise. It was also a great excuse for getting an Apple laptop for the library. Although we have a Mac piano lab, it is always in use, even after school and all of the library labs are PC. I had played with Audacity but Garageband was much easier to use. The tutorial in this course "How to Podcast" is very good and "Podcast Alley" very interesting. While puttering around in the podcast world, I found Joyce Valenza's "Web 2.0 Meets Information Fluency" which has many helpful links. I came across "Public Domain Music" music that could be used without infringing on copyright and music for which you could pay a small one time royalty fee at "Instant Music Now"--all very useful. I think it's time to graduate to video, I just bought Camtasia Studio--onward and upward.