Tag Archives: podcasting

What Everybody Ought To Know About Podcasting: Part II

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One of the hardest aspect of podcasting is deciding on a site to host them.

Sure you can use a podcast hosting site. But most people don’t realise podcasts can be hosted on their blogs.

Hosting podcasts on a blog can be simpler to set up, is easier for your audience to locate all of your content and you don’t have to deal with negative aspects of some podcasting sites.

In this second post of The Edublogger ‘podcasting series’ I’m going to explain how to host podcasts on blogs so readers who know how to create video/audio can set up their podcast feed.

Hosting podcasts on blogs

There are three main things to consider when hosting a podcast on a blog.

1. You’ll need a podcast feed

For your readers to subscribe to your podcast feed using a podcatcher like iTunes you need a podcast feed to your blog.

The easiest way to create this feed is using Feedburner.

2. All podcasts need to be assigned the same ‘unique category’

If you want to blend podcasts with your regular blog posts you need to add a ‘unique category’ to those posts that are podcasts and burn the podcast feed for that category only (read more about adding categories to posts here).

How it works is in your blog sidebar you will have:

  1. Subscribe to My RSS Feed – for all your posts
  2. Subscribe to My Podcasts – for all your podcasts

3. You can only insert one media file into the post

If you want your post to be a podcast then adding more than one audio or one video file means that the podcatcher won’t be able to download the podcast.

Creating a Podcast Feed Using Feedburner

  1. Register for a free account with Feedburner if you don’t have an existing account
  2. Log into your Feedburner Account
  3. Add your feed URL to the ‘Burn a feed right this instant‘
    • For example, if I used the category My Podcasts I would burn a podcast RSS feed for http://theedublogger.com/category/my-podcasts/feed
  4. Tick I’m a podcaster and then click Next
  5. Follow the instructions on each of the next pages to burn your podcast feed.

Adding the Podcast Feed to your blog sidebar

  1. Inside your feed account click on the Publicize Tab
  2. Next click on the Chicklet Chooser and copy the HTML code.
  3. On your blog dashboard, go to Design > Widgets
  4. Scroll down to Text widget in your available widget area (left hand side of dashboard) and click on Add.
  5. Click on Edit on the Text widget that has been added to your current widget area.Image of adding a text widget
  6. Paste code for Feedburner in the Text Widget
    • Tip: Change the words ‘Subscribe in Reader’ to ‘Subscribe to my podcasts’
  7. Click on Change
  8. Click on Save Changes at bottom of Current Widget area (right hand side of dashboard)

FINAL THOUGHTS

Besides using Feedburner to create podcast feeds it is one of the best tools for monitoring how many people subscribe to your blog. Here’s how to:

  1. Adding a RSS Feed From Feedburner To Your Blog – for Edublogs supporters only
  2. How To Add an Email Subscription to Your Blog
  3. Redirect Your Blog Feed To Feedburner

Remember ALWAYS subscribe to your own posts, ideally in both Google Reader and Bloglines, and by email, so you can spot immediately ANY issues fetching your feed. And if you create a podcast feed always subscribe to your podcasts using iTunes!

Please share your thoughts on podcasting in terms of:

  1. How long, in minutes, and/or maximum file size you use for podcasts
  2. What are your preferred file formats for podcasts e.g. mp3, mp4, m4v
  3. Do you tell your readers in the title that it is a podcasts? And any other tips for writing podcast titles.

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What Everybody Ought To Know About Podcasting: Part I

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What do you prefer the most? Blog posts, podcasts or online videos?

Good chance if you’re reading this you probably prefer blog posts. But this isn’t the case for everyone. Similarly some people prefer to write posts whereas other are more engaged creating audio and video.

The key is that most bloggers don’t realise that they can host podcasts on their blog, to cater to their readers who prefer podcasts, while blending them with their regular blog posts.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be running a series of posts here on The Edublogger on podcasting “how to’s”. (I was originally a podcaster before becoming a blogger 8-) ) .

What is a Podcast?

The term podcast originated from combining the words “ipods and broadcasting”.

Like blogging one of the most important aspects of podcasts is its RSS feed. The RSS feed is what brings the new information added to a website to you without having to visit the site.

Most people subscribe to the RSS feed from blogs using feed readers like Google Reader and Bloglines.

Whereas those that listen to podcasts usually subscribe to the RSS feed using podcatchers like iTunes. This means the latest podcast episodes are downloaded when iTunes is opened up and atuomatically transferred onto their ipod (or media player) when it’s to their computer.

In simple terms a podcast is audio or video content that you can subscribe to using RSS. Without the RSS it is audio streaming or online video. Please note video podcast are also referred to as vidcast or vodcast.

Best aspects of podcasting include:

  1. Podcasts can be listen and/or watched anywhere, anytime and on any type of device (from your computer to media players like ipods)
  2. Ideal for those that prefer content in audio or video format

Using podcasts with students

There are numerous ways podcasts can be used with students from you creating podcasts to help their learning to them creating their own podcasts. Lets collectively come up with some ideas by all sharing our ideas on using podcasts!

Can you please leave a comment (or write a post) to share:

  1. How you are using podcast with students. Do they listen to any podcasts? Do you create or they create?
  2. What software do you use to create your podcasts? Online or desktop?
  3. What are your podcasting tips?

FINAL THOUGHTS

The next post in our podcasting series will explain how to host your podcasts on a blog for those readers who already know how to create audio and video files. Followed by posts on “how to” create audio and video podcasts.

Please leave a comment to tell me what other questions about podcasting you would like me to explain!

Meanwhile RSS is one of the most important concepts of using Web 2.0 technology — if you are new to RSS please read this information to learn more!

If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider feed-icon32x32 Finding and Adding Creative Commons Images To Your Blog PostsSubscribing For Free!